The impact of acculturation and psychological wellbeing on South Asian immigrant adolescents and youth: a scoping review

Abstract

Among the global immigrant population, one of the fastest growing populations is the South Asian community. South Asian youth have experienced difficulties acculturating to the host culture. These difficulties have caused issues relating to identity and conflicts with family members relating to dating, marriage, and education. This scoping review will aim to summarize the literature available on acculturation and psychological well-being. The scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and Askey & O’Malley’s approach to data extraction. During the initial search, 220 full-text articles were retrieved from the APA PsycInfo, Web of Science, Medline, and Scopus databases. Ten articles were included in the final review. The following four themes were formulated: acculturation style, family conflict, coping style, and discrimination. We highlight that policies supporting collaboration between mental health practitioners, educators, researchers, and South Asian communities are critical for creating intervention programs that help South Asian families.