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Stress and depression in Latin American immigrants: The mediating role of religiosity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

T. Kirchner  and
C. Patiño
T. Kirchner*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatments, Barcelona, Spain
C. Patiño
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatments, Barcelona, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 933 125 009; fax: +34 934 021 427. E-mail address: tkirchner@ub.edu (T. Kirchner).
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Abstract

Objective

Migrating implies a high level of stress that may destabilise immigrants’ mental health. The sense of spiritual fulfilment (feelings of faith, religiosity, and transcendence beyond ordinary material life) can mitigate the stress and benefit mental health. The objective of the present study was to analyze the relationship between migratory stress, religiosity and depression symptoms, as well as the mediating role of religiosity between migratory stress and depression symptoms.

Method

Participants were 295 Latin American immigrants living in Barcelona (Spain), 186 of whom (63.1%) were women and 109 (36.9%) were men. They were recruited from a Spanish NGO by means of a consecutive-case method.

Results

The results showed an inverse relationship between religiosity and depression symptoms, but only in women. Likewise, in women, the sense of spiritual fulfilment had mediating value in buffering the relationship between stress and depression symptoms. This mediating value of spiritual fulfilment was not observed in men. For both genders religiosity was inversely related with stress. In addition, it was observed that the sense of religiosity decreases as the time since immigration passes.

Conclusions

These results may be of importance in clinical practice for prevention and therapeutic intervention with Latin American immigrants. As sense of transcendence and social support from the religious community are intertwined, it is difficult to specifically attribute the observed benefit of religiosity to the former versus the later.

Keywords

ImmigrantLatin AmericanStressDepression symptomsReligiosityMediational analyses
Type
Depression
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 25 , Issue 8 , December 2010 , pp. 479 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier Masson SAS 2010

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