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International Journal of Social Psychiatry
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What's this?

Migration and Mental Health: a Study of Low-Income Ethiopian Women Working in Middle Eastern Countries

Birke Anbesse

St Paul's General Specialized Hospital, PO Box 31657, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Charlotte Hanlon

King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK, charlotte.hanlon{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk

Atalay Alem

Department of Psychiatry, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Samuel Packer

University of Toronto, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

Rob Whitley

Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Centre, Lebanon, USA

Background: Few studies have explored influences on mental health of migrants moving between non-Western countries.

Methods: Focus group discussions were used to explore the experiences of Ethiopian female domestic migrants to Middle Eastern countries, comparing those who developed severe mental illness with those remaining mentally well.

Discussion: Prominent self-identified threats to mental health included exploitative treatment, enforced cultural isolation, undermining of cultural identity and disappointment in not achieving expectations. Participants countered these risks by affirming their cultural identity and establishing socio-cultural supports.

Conclusions: Mental health of migrant domestic workers may be jeopardized by stressors, leading to experience of social defeat.

Key Words: Ethiopia • mental health • Middle East • migration • qualitative

This version was published on November 1, 2009

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 55, No. 6, 557-568 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0020764008096704
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