IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v35y1989i4p350-360.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Somatic Symptoms Among Older Soviet Immigrants: an Exploratory Study

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Kohn

    (Columbia University, Fellow in Psychiatric Epidemiology, 154 Haven Avenue, Apt. 406, New York, New York, 10032, United States)

  • Joseph A. Flaherty

    (University of Illinois Department of Psychiatry, 912 S. Wood St., Chicago, Illinois, 60612, United States)

  • Itzhak Levav

    (Hadassah Medical Organization-Hebrew University Department of Social Medicine, POB 1172, Jerusalem 91010, Israel)

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates the overlap of somatization and depressive symp toms among older Jewish-Soviet immigrants to the United States. It has been sug gested that this group has depression often masked by somatic complaints. In order to test this hypothesis fifty-five respondents completed the Symptom Checklist 90, PERI Demoralization Scale and the Social Support Network Inventory. The somatiza tion subscale was found to be significantly higher among older Soviet immigrants than in a depressed group, yet the depression subscale was significantly lower. Com pared to a group of normal controls both the depression and somatization subscales were significantly elevated. Somatization, depression, and demoralization were elevated in Soviet immigrants. The results of this study are discussed in the context of the available literature on cross-cultural psychiatry and somatization. The clinical relevance of these findings is highlighted.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Kohn & Joseph A. Flaherty & Itzhak Levav, 1989. "Somatic Symptoms Among Older Soviet Immigrants: an Exploratory Study," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 35(4), pages 350-360, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:35:y:1989:i:4:p:350-360
    DOI: 10.1177/002076408903500408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076408903500408
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002076408903500408?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Ponizovsky & Eliezer Perl, 1997. "Does Supported Housing Protect Recent Immigrants From Psychological Distress?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 43(2), pages 79-86, June.
    2. Michael Ritsner & Alexander Ponizovsky, 1999. "Psychological Distress Through Immigration: the Two-Phase Temporal Pattern?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 45(2), pages 125-139, June.
    3. Karen J. Aroian & Anne E. Norris & Carol A. Patsdaughter & Thanh V. Tran, 1998. "Predicting Psychological Distress Among Former Soviet Immigrants," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 44(4), pages 284-294, December.
    4. Antonello Barbati & Alessandro Geraci & Fabiana Niro & Letizia Pezzi & Marco Sarchiapone, 2022. "Do Migration and Acculturation Impact Somatization? A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-11, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:35:y:1989:i:4:p:350-360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.