TY  - JOUR
A1  - Starck, Annabelle
A1  - Gutermann, Jana
A1  - Schouler-Ocak, Meryam
A1  - Jesuthasan, Jenny
A1  - Bongard, Stephan
A1  - Stangier, Ulrich
T1  - The relationship of acculturation, traumatic events and depression in female refugees
T2  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Recent research has identified significant correlations between traumatic events and depression in refugees. However, few studies have addressed the role of acculturation strategies in this relationship. This study explored the relationship between cultural orientation, traumatic events and depression in female refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, and Somalia living in Germany. We expected acculturation strategies to moderate the effect of traumatic experiences on depression. The sample included 98 female refugees in Germany. The depression scale of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL) represented the dependent measure. The trauma checklists derived from the Post-traumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) as well as the Frankfurt Acculturation Scale (FRACC) were used as independent measures for traumatic events and orientation toward the host culture as well as orientation toward the culture of origin, respectively. A moderation analysis was conducted to examine whether the relationship between the number of traumatic events and depression was influenced by the women’s orientation toward the culture of origin and the host culture. We identified a significant model explaining 26.85% of the variance in depressive symptoms (Cohen’s f2 = 0.37). The number of traumatic events and the orientation toward the host culture exerted significant effects on depressive symptoms. The moderating effect was not significant, indicating that the effect of the number of traumatic events was not influenced by cultural orientation. Based on our results, orientation toward the host culture as well as traumatic experiences exert independent effects on depressive symptoms in refugees.
KW  - female refugees
KW  - traumatic events
KW  - depressive symptoms
KW  - acculturation
KW  - integration
KW  - marginalization
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/55327
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-553279
SN  - 1664-1078
N1  - This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
VL  - 11
IS  - art. 906
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -