Characterizing Mental Health in Children of Latino Immigrants at a Pediatric Primary Care Practice

Background: Children belonging to immigrant communities often face difficulties receiving affordable and culturally sensitive healthcare. The process of acculturation can also lead to uncertainty and challenges pertaining to mental health. If these issues are caught early, they can be treated by proper intervention. The purpose of this study was twofold: to screen for mental health issues in children of Latinx immigrants in a primary care pediatric setting and to correlate selected demographic variables to the mental health of these children. We hypothesized that variables such as increased parental time in the United States and non-asylum seeking status (non-Cuban country of origin) would prove significantly protective in the mental health of Latinx immigrant children (lower overall SDQ scores).

Methods: After receiving UofL IRB approval, the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was administered to Latinx parents who had children ages 2 to 18 at time of their child’s well child check during the years 2016-2018. Demographic information including country of origin, parental time living in the US, and language spoken at home was also collected from these subjects. Data were analyzed with IBM SPSS (version 25) using descriptive statistics (mean ± SD) and chi square analyses to analyze the relationship between SDQ scores and sex. Linear regression modeling was also used to detail the relationship between descriptive variables and SDQ results. The null hypothesis was rejected at p < 0.05.

Results: 120 total participants were enrolled in this study. Children ages 7.9 ± 4.3 years old had parents who had been in the US for 11.9 ± 6.4 years and reported SDQ scores for their children of 8.4 ± 5.5 overall. Mexico and Cuba were the most common countries of origin, while Spanish was the most likely language to be spoken at home. Results of the chi square analysis showed a statistically significant difference between male and female children for the SDQ sub-score of emotional problems. Based on linear regression modeling, a significant difference existed between asylum and non-asylum seeking children in the protective prosocial portion of the SDQ. No other relationships proved statistically significant.

Conclusion: The fact that asylum-seeking status was associated with a higher positive protective prosocial score led us to believe that additional support at time of immigration like that given to asylum-seekers and/or intangible aspects like having a large existing cultural community may most strongly impact mental health positively for immigrant populations. Additional parental time in the United States trended higher negative mental health scores across the SDQ, though these trends did not reach statistical significance. While further studies are needed to fully characterize these differences, screening and targeted mental health support for all pediatric populations should remain of utmost priority if we are to equitably care for these children.