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. 1985 May;75(5):523–527. doi: 10.2105/ajph.75.5.523

Psychoneuroses among Mexican Americans and other whites: prevalence and caseness.

W A Vega, B Kolody, G Warheit
PMCID: PMC1646270  PMID: 3872606

Abstract

This paper reports the findings from an epidemiological survey conducted in California using the Health Opinion Survey (HOS), a measure of psychoneuroticism, as well as other scales and inventories. Uncontrolled results indicate that Mexican Americans have higher symptom and case levels, but that these differences are found primarily among marginally acculturated and immigrant respondents. HOS caseness levels were 15.4 for Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans, 6.6 for English-speaking Mexican Americans, and 5.5 for other Whites. Joint effects of ethnicity for sex, age, education, and marital status were substantial, however there were differences in caseness between Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans, English-speaking Mexican Americans, and other Whites on four measures of psychological distress. The results indicate the importance of acculturation-related factors, including educational attainment, language preference, and nativity for predicting symptomatology among Mexican Americans.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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