Immigrant acculturation, help-seeking behavior, psychological health, and complementary and alternative medicine in the United States

This study was designed to assess the significance of years in the country and citizenship status as a proxy measure of acculturation in predicting help seeking behavior, psychological health outcomes, and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in minority immigrants. A thorough review of the literature has led us to hypothesize that minority immigrants with higher levels of acculturation are more likely to seek help. We anticipated the same relationship between the level of acculturation and psychological health such that high levels of acculturation will lead to increased psychological health difficulties. Higher levels of acculturation will also increase the likelihood of seeking psychological help. Lastly, we hypothesize that minority immigrants with higher levels of acculturation will be less likely to use complementary and alternative medicine. A weighted sample of foreign born participants were selected from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), an annual, extensive, multipurpose public health survey that inquired about health care utilization, CAM use, and psychological health. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that the level of acculturation significantly predicted help seeking behavior, psychological health, and CAM use. However, further analysis revealed that acculturation explained very little of the variance in the outcome variables. Future research should concentrate on studying immigrants from various backgrounds as well as developing a more standardized measure of acculturation.