Mood disorders in first- and second-generation immigrants: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Although there are consistent reports of higher psychosis rates among immigrants, the information on mood disorders is limited.To review and quantify the difference in incidence of mood disorders in first- and second-generation immigrant (FGI and SGI) groups non-immigrants.PubMed, EMBASE and PsycINFO were searched for articles from cohort studies reporting incidence of mood disorders among FGIs and SGIs.Eighteen studies met our inclusion criteria. The summary relative risk (RR) for FGIs was 1.25 (95% CI 1.11-1.41), based on 17 effect sizes and 6120 cases, and 1.16 (95% CI 0.96-1.40) for SGIs based on three effect sizes. Men seemed at higher risk (RR = 1.29, 95% CI 1.06-1.56).Clinicians should view FGIs as a group at risk of mood disorders, especially men. Further research is needed to understand immigrants' risk, especially in SGI.

Risk of eating disorders in immigrant populations

“…Danish population data also showed lower incidence rates of affective and personality disorders among immigrants than native Danes . In contrast, two meta‐analyses of population‐based studies suggest an overall modest increase in risk of mood disorders in immigrants, although considerable heterogeneity existed across studies . The seemingly conflicting findings across studies may be explained by the heterogeneous nature of immigrant populations.…”

Ethnic inequalities in the incidence of diagnosis of severe mental illness in England: a systematic review and new meta-analyses for non-affective and affective psychoses

“…Previous meta-analyses have tended to aggregate data from a diversity of settings and ethnic groups [8,9,[19][20][21][22][23] combining ethnic minority people regardless of diverse identities and pre-and post-migrant experiences [19,22,23]-against a 'native' reference population. Although some reviewers have synthesised and reported summary estimates for studies conducted in the UK [9] or England more specifically [11,15], data for some ethnic groups has not been pooled largely due to the limited evidence base (i.e.…”

“…In addition, the incidence of diagnosis of affective psychoses is not as well understood. Some reports indicate excess diagnosis risks in both types of psychoses for ethnic minority or migrant groups [24][25][26][27], while other reports have demonstrated that the diagnosis of non-affective psychoses, or schizophrenia specifically, is particularly raised [11,23], or that the diagnosis of affective psychoses may not be significantly higher for certain ethnic minority compared to the reference populations [20,22].…”

“…Our investigations of heterogeneity were influenced by previous meta-analyses that have hypothesised potentially important and variously examined variables that may moderate or mediate the effects of ethnicity on the diagnosed incidence of psychoses. In accordance with previous metaanalyses, we focused on time [15], nationality [11], gender [8,9,11,19,20,22], age [11,22], location [9,15], diagnostic criteria [9,20,22] and study quality [9,15,20].…”

Immigrants’ mental health service use compared to that of native Finns: a register study

“…Studies have indeed indicated that immigrants, especially refugees, have a greater risk of developing some mental illnesses than native populations [1,[3][4][5][6]. In many countries, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders have been more common among immigrants than native populations [3][4][5]7].…”