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Abstract Acculturative stress and social support play important roles in suicide-related phenomena among adolescent immigrants. To examine their contributions, measures of acculturative and general life stress and a measure of multiple sources of social support were used to predict psychological distress and suicidal ideation among Korean-born high school students residing in the US. Korean students who were sojourning without both parents were compared to Korean students who immigrated with both parents, Korean students who remained in Korea, and American high school students in the US (total N = 227; 56.8% female). The sojourning group reported higher levels of life stress, distress, psychological symptoms, and suicidal ideation than the other groups. Within the two acculturating groups, levels of distress, symptoms, and suicidal ideation were associated with life stress, lack of parental support, and not living with both parents. The findings have important implications for suicide prevention among immigrant adolescents, and imply that parental support is particularly protective.
Keywords Acculturation * Adolescence * Immigrants * Korea * Parents * Social support * Suicidality
Introduction
Adolescence is not invariably a time of psychological turmoil, but it can be a time of vulnerability. One form that this vulnerability may take is suicidal ideation and behavior. Suicide is the third highest cause of death among adolescents and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention national survey in 2000 indicated that 19.3% of adolescents had seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous year. This risk varies according to ethnicity and immigration status. Higher rates of suicidality have been report among Asian and Pacific Islander adolescents, and among adolescents of immigrant backgrounds (Hovey and King 1997). The physical and social dislocations associated with immigration may be especially risk-producing for adolescents, who must add the stresses of acculturation to the ordinary challenges of growing up.
Adolescent Korean immigrants provide an important illustration of these stresses. In the past decade, many have traveled to the US in search of a quality education in a lesspressured environment than the ''college entrance examination hell'' that they would experience at home. Some families emigrate with their adolescent children. Others send their children to the US on temporary visas, often accompanied by one parent, or arrange for them to stay with relatives or other guardians. This practice...