Mental Health Problems of New Ethnic Min Orities in Sweden

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Abstract
Immigrant mental patients attending the psychiatric clinic of Vasterås Central Hospital in Central Sweden were compared with Swedish patients at the samt clinic as regards to diagnosis, expressed problems, amount of care, and social charac teristics. Propensity to seek public psychiatric treatment was lower than among Swedes. It was the higher the greater the geographical and cultural distance between Sweden and their country ot ongin is: immigrants from Northern and Western Europe attended the clinic to a lesser degree than those from Southern and Eastern Europe. Compared with native Swedes immigrant patients were more often diagnosed as paranoid, hysterical, hypochondriacal or neurastenic. Depression was less common than in the native population. Immigrants had fewer problems at work and in human relations, but more somatic symptoms (East- and South-Europeans) or problems with alcohol (Finns). Patients who had migrated at a young age had the most severe problems. Immigrant mental patients were better integrated to the society through work and family than indigeneous patients. Migration status seems so stressinducing that even otherwise socially integrated persons fall mentally ill. With the help of a factor analysis four types of immigrant mental patients could be distinguished according to their main problem area: patients suffering from (1) adjustment problems, (2) human relations and psychotic problems vs. somatic symptoms, (3) political and work problems, and (4) alcohol and housing problems. The frequency ot these problems was analyzed according to sex, ethnicity and duration of stay in Sweden.

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