Stress & Hispanic Mental Health: Relating Research to Service Delivery.

Vega, William A., Ed.; Miranda, Manuel R., Ed.

This monograph provides current data on Hispanic stress and its impact on mental health and identifies areas where further research is needed. It consists of 11 chapters by a variety of authors. Chapter 1 presents a critical overview of major issues and concepts in stress modeling and cross-cultural research with Hispanic populations. Chapter 2 summarizes findings on the prevalence of symptomatology among Hispanics and scrutinizes trends. Chapter 3 discusses the determination of the relative usefulness of the stress buffering and direct effect hypotheses of social support using stress theory to guide analysis. Chapter 4 illustrates the use of multifactorial modeling in identifying factors which predict discrete symptoms and syndromes among immigrant and native-born Mexican-Americans. Chapter 5 examines the differential impact of life events on Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Anglos using psychological distress as the outcome measure. Chapter 6 reviews social support theory and methodological issues as they pertain to Hispanic mental health research. Chapter 7 presents a conceptual model for systematically developing studies of Hispanic mental health. Chapter 8 examines the effectiveness of a specific coping style used by Hispanic immigrants in adjusting to a new culture. Chapter 9 examines differences among Mexican-Americans and Anglos in relation to knowledge of and attitudes toward stress. Chapter 10 provides data on child abuse within a Mexican-American population. Chapter 11 presents findings from a comprehensive survey of the life experiences of a group of pregnant Hispanic adolescents. (KH)