Ethnic Identity and Collective Self-Esteem Mediate the Effect of Anxiety and Depression on Quality of Life in a Migrant Population.

Alfonso Urzúa,Alejandra Caqueo-Urízar,Diego Henríquez,Rodrigo Landabur

doi:10.3390/ijerph19010174

Abstract

Migration processes can often trigger negative interactions with the context, generating problems in both the physical and mental health of migrants, which have an impact on both their well-being and their quality of life. In this framework, the research aimed to assess the mediating effect of ethnic identity and collective self-esteem on the inverse relationship between mental health problems and quality of life. Data were collected from 908 first-generation Colombian migrants living in Chile, of whom 50.2% were women and with an average age of 35 years. They were assessed with The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoL)-Bref, Smith’s ethnic identity questionnaire, Basabe’s collective self-esteem, and Beck’s Anxiety and Depression questionnaires. The results provide evidence that both collective self-esteem and ethnic identity exert a partial mediation effect on the relationship between anxiety and depression on quality of life. The study provides evidence of the protective role that the maintenance and reinforcement of ethnic identity and collective self-esteem can have, with a view to strengthening the planning of interventions both in the field of prevention of mental health problems and in the improvement of quality of life based on evidence.

Highlights

An international migrant is a person who moves outside their usual place of residence, across an international border, temporarily or permanently, for a variety of reasons [1]
These are for Models collective self-esteem 0.73, ethnic identity 0.85, anxiety 0.92, and
(M1), collective self-esteem (M2),. ethnic identity (M3), anxiety (M4), and depression (M5) presented acceptable goodness of fit, with indices close to the standards recommended by the literature

Summary

Introduction

An international migrant is a person who moves outside their usual place of residence, across an international border, temporarily or permanently, for a variety of reasons [1]. There is abundant evidence that migration processes involve changes both in the people who migrate and in the societies that host them and with which they interact. The health and well-being of migrants can be negatively affected by phenomena such as discrimination and prejudice, affecting and diminishing their quality of life [3]. In a non-diseased migrant population, there is some evidence of a relationship between perceived quality of life and age, gender, income level, close relationships, the process and strategies of acculturation, social support, discrimination, and stress [3,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]

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