Stress and Coping Strategies in the Lives of Recent Immigrants: A Grounded Theory Model

Abstract

A grounded theory was utilized to develop a model of stress and coping experienced by recent immigrants to the United States. Maximum variation sampling was used to gather data from 20 leaders within immigrant and refugee communities in a Midwest U.S. city. A theoretical model was developed by identifying causal conditions, contexts, intervening conditions, and consequences related to experiences of stress and coping. Specific propositions in regard to the process of stress, coping, and adaptation among recent immigrants were made. Implications for clinical services and research with this population are considered.

"Nature is there; its free": Urban greenspace and the social determinants of health of immigrant families

“…To examine the question as to whether urban nature has the salutary effects in immigrant populations as have been previously identified in non-immigrant populations, social determinants of health pertinent to migrant populations were identified. These determinants included housing (Germain, 2009;; social cohesion (Zhang and Ta, 2009); immigration status (OxmanMartinez et al, 2005); age, income, and gender (Newbold and Danforth, 2003); education and language proficiency (Chiswick et al, 2008), disruptions in parent-child relationship, prior trauma, and separation from attachment relationships in one's home country (Aycan and Berry, 1996;Yakushko et al, 2008;Yakushko, 2010) and psychosocial stressors specific to migration trajectories (Kirmayer et al, 2011). The qualitative study discussed in this paper explored whether participants accessed nature to address the negative impact of any of these social health determinants.…”

Immigrant Family Resilience in Context: Using a Community‐Based Approach to Build a New Conceptual Model

“…Immigrant families often experience uncertainty about whether they will be able to reunite with their family members, either in the United States or by returning to their country of origin. Many are also uncertain about the safety or even survival of family members who remain in dangerous conditions back home (Hauck, Lo, Maxwell, & Reynolds, ; Yakushko, ). Policies related to the deportation of undocumented immigrants generate great uncertainty and fear of separation among families, as described by Glick ():

Although official U.S. policy encourages family reunification through immigration, current practices and some popular rhetoric suggest a more limited concern with maintaining family stability among immigrants and virtually no such concern for undocumented family members who are subject to deportation.

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Women's Mental Health

“…Mental health interventions often fail to consider the importance of the broader social and economic context experienced by newcomers and may not be fully appreciative of the resilience that pervades the coping strategies used by immigrant mothers. Starting with frequently thwarted vocational and economic expectations upon arrival (Galabuzi & Teelucksingh, 2010 ;Negy, Schwartz, & Reig-Ferrer, 2009 ), language and cultural barriers, lack of information, loss of status and social support, lack of child care, and racism and oppression, the pervasive challenges experienced in the context of migration affect immigrant women's stress levels and mental health, necessitating the adoption of coping strategies (Bhugra, 2004 ;Donnelly et al, 2011 ;Yakushko, 2010 ). These coping strategies, which are often based on traditional cultural practices, though indicators of resilience, may in turn themselves become new stressors for women and their families in a new physical and cultural context.…”