Self report ratings of psychopathology in Korean and Jamaican women

ABSTRACT

Women from different nations with different customs may express varying levels of psychological distress and present problems in forms their societies accept. We compared women from Korea and Jamaica where women's roles and behaviour differ, and may influence the types of symptoms they display. Korean culture supports women's dependence, submissiveness, and obedience toward male partners and discourages women from expressing feelings, a custom that causes women distress which is usually expressed as anxiety related disorders. Jamaican women comprise most Jamaica's work force and are described as independent, outwardly expressive, and unlike Korean women may externalize their psychological distress. We tested these hypotheses using the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a multidimensional psychopathology measure, to survey Korean (N = 214) and Jamaican women (N = 282). Using age and nationality as predictors and total score and the nine BSI scales as criterion variables considered separately, multiple regression analyses reveal significantly higher scores on total problems and on all the paranoid scales scores on total problems and on all the paranoid scale scores for Korean than for Jamaica women. Large effect on the Somatization and Obsessive Complusive scales and a medium effect on the anxiety scale indicate that while Korean women generally expressed much more distress than Jamaica women, they are particularly vulnerable for the development of anxiety related problems(AU)