Acculturative Stress and Depression of Vietnamese Immigrant Workers in Korea

Hye Jeong Jeon; Ga Eon Lee

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.4.380

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Jeon and Lee: Acculturative Stress and Depression of Vietnamese Immigrant Workers in Korea

Original Article

J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs 2015;26(4):380-389.

Published online: 12 December 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.4.380

Acculturative Stress and Depression of Vietnamese Immigrant Workers in Korea

Hye Jeong Jeon¹, Ga Eon Lee²

¹Dong-A University Hospital, Busan, Korea

²Department of Nursing, Dong-A University, Busan, Korea

Corresponding author: Lee, Ga Eon Department of Nursing, Dong-A University, 32 Daesingongwon-ro, Seo-gu, Busan 602-714, Korea. Tel: +82-51-240-2885, Fax: +82-51-240-2920, E-mail: gelee@dau.ac.kr

Received 25 September 2015 Revised 4 December 2015 Accepted 17 December 2015

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between acculturative stress and depression of Vietnamese immigrant workers in Korea.

Methods

The subjects were 230 Vietnamese immigrant workers residing legally in B or K City. Data were collected from July 12, 2014 to August 3, 2014, and were analyzed using the SPSS PASW 21.0 program.

Results

The average level of acculturative stress was 2.91 and there were significant differences in the score according to whether to have a religion, the number of homeland friends, and Korean language skill. The average depression level of the subjects was 15.3 and the level was different significantly according to whether to have a religion, the number of homeland friends, salary, working hours, and Korean language skill. Acculturative stress and depression showed a significant positive correlation with each other. The influencing factors of depression were acculturative stress and the number of homeland friends. The most significant factor was acculturative stress.

Conclusion

This result shows the necessity of various programs to diminish acculturative stress to control the depression of immigrant workers.

Keywords: Immigrants, Acculturation, Depression

References

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Table 1.

General Characteristics of Subjects

(N=230)

Characteristics	Categories	n (%)	M±SD
Gender	Male	179 (77.83)
Gender	Female	51 (22.17)
Age (year)	≤29	113 (49.13)	29.9±4.32
	30~34	85 (36.96)
	≥35	32 (13.91)
Education (year)	≤12	170 (73.91)	12.45±1.61
Education (year)	≥13	60 (26.09)
Marital status	Married	91 (39.57)
Marital status	None	139 (60.43)
Religion	Have	159 (69.13)
Religion	None	71 (30.87)
Length of residence in Korea (months)	≤36	70 (30.43)	48.88±24.79
	37~48	75 (32.61)
	≥49	85 (36.96)
Living status	Alone	62 (26.96)
	Foreigners	33 (14.35)
	Vietnamese	109 (47.39)
	Others	26 (11.30)
Number of homeland friends (n)	≤10	126 (54.78)	16.81±17.47
Number of homeland friends (n)	≥11	104 (45.22)
Immigrant workers in company (n)	≤10	141 (61.30)	12.13±11.74
	11~20	58 (25.22)
	≥21	31 (13.48)
Type of shift	Day	155 (68.28)
	Shift	56 (24.67)
	Others	16 (7.05)
Frequency of transfer job	≤1	107 (46.52)	2.79±1.44
	2	52 (22.61)
	3	40 (17.39)
	≥4	31 (13.48)
Monthly income (10,000 won)	≤150	62 (26.96)	177.72±31.70
	151~200	148 (64.35)
	≥201	20 (8.70)
Working hours/week	≤60	156 (67.83)
Working hours/week	≥61	74 (32.17)
Off day/month	≤2	30 (13.04)	4.18±1.50
	3~4	156 (67.83)
	5~6	24 (10.43)
	≥7	20 (8.70)
Korean ability	Poor (4~10)	80 (34.78)	10.63±2.54
Korean ability	Moderate (11~20)	150 (65.22)

Table 2.

Degrees of Acculturative Stress and Depression (N=230)

Variables	M±SD
Acculturative Stress	2.91±0.41
Homesickness	3.26±0.69
The difficulty of communicating	3.10±0.66
Cultural shock	2.80±0.57
Prejudice/discrimination	2.79±0.75
Difficulties in the workplace	2.85±0.45
Difficulties in interpersonal relationships	2.66±0.50
Depression	15.33±7.32

Table 3.

Differences of Acculturative Stress and Depression according to General Characteristics of Subjects (N=230)

Characteristics	Categories	Acculturative stress		Depression		Scheffé
Characteristics	Categories	M±SD	t or F (p)	M±SD	t or F (p)	Scheffé
Gender	Male	2.89±0.41	1.16	14.90±7.04	1.68
Gender	Female	2.97±0.40	(.248)	16.84±8.12	(.095)
Age (year)	≤29	2.94±0.37	2.44	16.05±7.62	1.53
	30~34	2.93±0.44	(.089)	15.02±7.08	(.218)
	≥35	2.77±0.42		13.59±6.74
Education (year)	≤12	2.93±0.39	0.87	15.83±7.68	1.75
Education (year)	≥13	2.87±0.45	(.384)	13.92±6.03	(.082)
Marital status	Married	2.85±0.42	1.84	14.70±6.89	1.05
Marital status	None	2.95±0.39	(.067)	15.74±7.59	(.294)
Religion	Have	2.96±0.41	2.63	16.09±7.00	2.39
Religion	None	2.81±0.39	(.009)	13.62±7.77	(.018)
Length of residence in Korea (month)	≤36	2.97±0.44	1.07	14.91±6.47	0.22
	37~48	2.91±0.36	(.346)	15.31±7.71	(.805)
	≥49	2.87±0.42		15.69±7.69
Living status	Alone	2.95±0.44	1.75	16.94±7.12	1.53
	Foreigners	2.91±0.38	(.157)	14.45±6.79	(.206)
	Vietnamese	2.86±0.41		14.61±7.69
	Others	3.05±0.32		15.65±6.54
Number of homeland friends (n)	≤10	2.97±0.42	2.38	16.76±7.37	3.33
Number of homeland friends (n)	≥11	2.84±0.38	(.018)	13.60±6.91	(＜.001)
Immigrant workers in company (n)	≤10	2.94±0.40	2.00	15.75±7.35	0.79
	11~20	2.91±0.39	(.138)	14.31±7.06	(.453)
	≥21	2.78±0.47		15.32±7.70
Type of shift	Day	2.92±0.39	0.08	15.44±7.28	0.12
	Shift	2.90±0.42	(.922)	15.13±7.08	(.883)
	Others	2.92±0.52		14.56±8.85
Frequency of transfer job	≤1	2.87±0.41	1.03	14.49±6.81	0.96
	2	2.96±0.42	(.380)	15.96±7.67	(.414)
	3	2.98±0.41		16.48±8.05
	≥4	2.90±0.38		15.71±7.48
Monthly income (10,000 won)	≤150^a	2.98±0.44	1.11	17.39±7.61	5.78	a＞b＞c
Monthly income (10,000 won)	151~200^b ≥201^c	2.89±0.40 2.87±0.33	(.333)	15.01±7.15 11.35±5.77	(.004)
Working hours/week	≤60	2.93±0.42	0.88	16.10±7.40	2.32
Working hours/week	≥61	2.88±0.37	(.379)	13.72±6.92	(.021)
Off day/month	≤2	2.85±0.39	1.46	12.70±8.15	2.54
	3~4	2.92±0.41	(.227)	15.90±7.06	(.057)
	5~6	3.04±0.38		16.75±7.15
	≥7	2.81±0.40		13.15±7.38
Korean ability	Poor	3.05±0.35	3.86	16.90±8.77	2.88
Korean ability	Moderate	2.84±0.42	(＜.001)	13.64±7.82	(.004)

a, b, c: Scheffé test.

Table 4.

Correlation of Acculturative Stress and Depression (N=230)

Variables	Acculturative stress r (p)
Depression	.49 (＜.001)

Table 5.

Influencing Factors on Depression of the Subjects (N=230)

Variables	Categories	B	SE	_β	t	p
(Constant)		−7.75	4.99		−1.55	.122
Religion	Have	1.84	1.02	.10	1.80	.073
	None (ref.)
Number of homeland friends	≤10	2.23	0.97	.13	2.31	.022
	≥11 (ref.)
Monthly income (10,000 won)		−0.26	0.16	−.10	−1.63	.105
Working hours/weeks	≤60	1.45	1.06	.08	1.36	.175
	≥61 (ref.)
Korean ability	Moderate (11~20)	−1.15	1.02	−.07	−1.13	.258
	Poor (4~10) (ref.)
Acculturative stress		8.39	1.22	.41	6.90	＜.001
		Adj. R²=.28, F=13.53, p＜.001

Ref=Reference group.

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