| dc.description.abstract | Background: Previous research shows that the prevalence of psychiatric problems is higher for ethnic minority youth compared to native youth. The aim of this study was to examine the differences in prevalence of psychotic experiences (PE’s) and emotional problems in ethnic minority youth compared with their Dutch peers. Moreover, we investigated to what extend these differences are explained by acculturation and perceived personal and group discrimination.
Method: This study analyses the data of two cohorts of similar studies. PE’s and emotional problems were assessed in a sample of 2374 ethnic minority and majority schoolchildren (M age = 13.72, SD = 1.43) in the Netherlands. The three biggest ethnic groups in the Netherlands were studied i.e. the Dutch (n = 1516), Moroccan-Dutch (n = 559) and the Dutch-Turkish (n = 299) group. The self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and questionnaires on PE, impact, perceived personal and group discrimination and acculturation were used.
Results: Our research showed that the prevalence of PE’s, hallucinatory experiences (HLE’s) and emotional problems among the Dutch-Moroccan and the Dutch-Turkish group is significantly lower in comparison with the native Dutch group. Assimilation with regard to ethnic identity had the most effect on the development of PE’s, HLE’s and delusion experiences (DLE’s) among Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Turkish youth. And perceived personal and group discrimination had a significant effect on the development of PE’s, HLE’s, DLE’s and emotional problems among Dutch, Dutch-Turkish and Dutch-Moroccan youth.
Conclusions:
Assimilation had the most effect and this may be related to identity conflicts, rejecting the heritage culture and adopting the receiving culture in order to be more accepted which can lead to mental health problems due to the identity crisis. Personal discrimination had a stronger effect in comparison with group discrimination on the development of PE’s, HLE’s, DLE’s and emotional problems among Dutch-Turkish and Dutch-Moroccan youth which is in accordance with the minority stress theory. Group discrimination, among Dutch-Moroccans and Dutch-Turkish-youth, is related to better mental health in accordance with the rejection-identification model. Noteworthy is that personal and group discrimination had a strong similar effect among the Dutch youth. | |
