Psychosocial Predictors of Stress in Polish Immigrants

Abstract

Migration may be seen as a critical life event. Moving to foreign country requires an individual to face a completely new life situation. Our previous research brought up the following questions: 1) are there any differences in perceived stress among immigrants regarding country of destination; 2) what are psychosocial predictors of stress in immigrants. Research group: 239 Polish immigrants to England, Scotland and Ireland. Participants were asked to fill out several questionnaires: COPE, BMS, SE, DI. Analyses have shown that load of stress among immigrants is different in every country in this research (F=29,768**; eta2=0,20). Moreover, stress predictors are different in every country of immigrants’ destination. For immigrants psychosocial factors explain: in case of England 28% of stress variability (R2=0,28;F= 9,101**), Ireland 20% of stress (R2=0,20;F=11,262**), Scotland 34% of stress (R2=0,34;F=11,892**). Our results demonstrated that countries differ essentially in demands of immigration. Most likely distinctive features of immigrants destination countries are source of high stress. We anticipated that reasons for obtained results lay in cultural differences immigrants are exposed to.