Immigrants with Trauma: From Risk to Resilience

On March 2 Tomas Jurcik (Assistant Professor, PhD, Faculty of Social Science, School of Psychology, HSE) took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report on "Immigrants with Trauma: From Risk to Resilience".

A large proportion of immigrants report having experienced exposure to trauma although only a minority go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. The following presentation explored preliminary findings from a pilot study of visible minority immigrants with lived trauma experiences residing in Montreal, Canada (N = 92). It examined potential risk and protective variables including social-interactional (social support, acculturation, and discrimination), social-ecological (perceived ethnic density), and personality factors, in relation to post-traumatic symptoms, general distress and well-being. Partly consistent with our previous research on the acculturation-social ecology match model, heritage acculturation interacted with ethnic density in predicting well-being. However, traumatic stress symptoms were predicted by personality, but not significantly by perceptions of ethnic density. Theoretical and clinical implications, as well as limitations, were be discussed.