Prediction of adaptation difficulties by country of origin, cumulate psychosocial stressors and attitude toward integrating: a Swedish study of first-generation immigrants from Somalia, Vietnam and China.

Background: Different types of accumulated stress have been found to have negative consequences for immigrants' capacity to adapt to the new environment. It remains unclear which factors have the greatest influence.

Aims: The study investigated whether immigrants' experience of great difficulty in adapting to a new country could best be explained by (1) country of origin, (2) exposure to accumulated stressors before arrival or (3) after arrival in the new country and/or (4) reserved attitude toward integrating into the new society.

Increased risk of psychotic disorder among immigrants in Malmö: a 3-year first-contact study.

Background: Previous findings of increased rates of psychotic disorders among immigrants to Sweden are primarily based on hospital samples. The aim of the current study was to compare the risks of first contact for psychotic and schizophrenic disorders among first- and second-generation immigrants to the risks in native 'Swedes'.

Method: During a 3-year period, diagnostic information was collected on all patients with a possible psychotic disorder who made a first-in-lifetime contact with both in-patient and out-patient psychiatric services in Malmö.

Psychiatric admissions for psychosis in Malmö during the NATO bombing of Kosovo.

Little is known about the possible mechanisms contributing to increased risk for psychosis found among immigrants. We used the NATO bombing campaign of Kosovo as a naturalistic experiment to explore the role of potentially stressful aspects of minority group status. We examined all patient admissions to the psychiatric clinic in Malmö during the months of the NATO campaign in Kosovo in 1999 and during control months in 1997.