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Simon Wolf [1] and Eric Hahn [1] and Michael Dettling [1] and Main Huong Nguyen [1] and Katja Wingenfeld [1] and Markus Stingl [2] and Bernd Hanewald [2] and Thi Minh Tam Ta [1]

Academic Editor: Janusz K. Rybakowski

1, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health), Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany, hu-berlin.de

2, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Universitätsklinikum Gießen, Gießen, Germany, ukgm.de

Received Jan 22, 2017; Revised Jun 26, 2017; Accepted Jul 12, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

Most migration processes may be conceptualized as a series of mainly stressful life events, each with the cumulative capacity to increase the risk for a broad range of mental health problems. While from a global perspective mental health issues are widely spread among migrants worldwide [1] findings on the epidemiology regarding specific mental disorders still vary with respect to different migration-samples and migration-contexts. This inconsistency also holds true to the incidence and prevalence rates of mood disorders among migrants. While a few studies have reported either similar [2] or even lower [3] depression rates compared to the mainstream population, the majority of these studies have found increased prevalence rates [4]. In one recent European study, for example, the prevalence rates of elderly Moroccan (33.6%) and Turkish (61.5%) migrants turned out to be significantly higher than in a native Dutch sample (14.5%) [5]. Additionally, many of these studies do not merely report increased depression rates but also a higher severity level and prolonged course of depression with less mental health care utilization in migrants [6].

Regarding Vietnamese in Germany, although being the country’s largest Southeast Asian migrant population, research on their mental health condition still is extremely rare. Among the very few existing studies a survey of 88 Vietnamese migrants in the city of Leipzig identified higher anxiety and depression scores as well as a lower utilization of medical and psychosocial institutions than in the German control sample [7]. Moreover, perceived discrimination was shown to be a powerful migration-related stressor (MRS, defined as non-life-threatening...
     
   
   
 
 
     
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
     
     
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
             
 

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