Depression in non-Korean women residing in South Korea following marriage to Korean men.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to examine the roles of acculturative stress, life satisfaction, and language literacy in depression in non-Korean women residing in South Korea following marriage to Korean men. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed, using an anonymous, self-reporting questionnaire. A total of 173 women were selected using a proportional stratified random sampling method. The relation between acculturation, depression, language literacy, life satisfaction and socio-demographic variables and the predictors of depression among participants were analyzed. The analysis included descriptive statistics and hierarchical multiple regression. RESULTS: Of the participants, 9.2% had depression, which was almost twice the rate of depression found in the general Korean population. In hierarchical multiple regression analysis, acculturative stress (beta=-.325, P<.001) and life satisfaction (beta=-.282, P=.003) were significantly associated with the level of depression. This final model was statistically significant and life satisfaction, acculturative stress, language literacy accounted for 31.0% (adjusted R(2)) of the variance in the depression score (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Elevated acculturative stress and less life satisfaction were significantly associated with a higher level of depression in migrant wives in Korea. Implications for practice and research are discussed.