A focus on an emerging Latina/o population: The role of psychological acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping on depression symptoms among central Florida Puerto Ricans.

Abstract

Research has documented the relationship between acculturation, acculturative stress, coping, and psychological problems among Latinas/os in the United States by using aggregated Latina/o (pan-ethnic) samples. However, the generalizability of these data across specific Latina/o subgroups in different geographic contexts remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine how psychological acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping helped predict depression group membership (high, medium, low) in a sample of Puerto Rican adults (N 113) living in Central Florida. Results from a multinomial logistic regression indicated that individuals in the high depression group were more likely to endorse increased acculturative stress, increased maladaptive coping strategies, and less frequent adaptive coping than individuals in the low depression group. Individuals in the medium depression group were more likely to experience higher acculturative stress and adopt more maladaptive coping than the low depression group. Tests of interaction effects indicated that either acculturative stress or coping strategy helped predict membership into the depression groups. Implications regarding the mental health of Puerto Ricans in the United States mainland are discussed.