Sense of coherence and depression in the framework of immigration: Turkish patients in Germany and in Turkey

Figures & data

Table I. Demographic and immigration-specific characteristics.

		Total	Turkish immigrant patients	Local Turkish patients
		N = 156	N = 96	N = 60
Age	M	37.40	36.67	38.57
	SD	9.78	9.52	10.15
	Range	19–71	19–71	19–63
Gender	Women	120 (76.9%)	73 (76.0%)	47 (78.3%)
	Men	36 (23.1%)	23 (24.0%)	13 (21.7%)
Marital status	Married	110 (70.5%)	70 (72.9%)	40 (66.7%)
	Single/divorced/widowed	46 (29.5%)	26 (27.1%)	20 (33.3%)
Education
	No education	8 (5.1%)	8 (8.3%)	0
	Primary school (grades 1–5) no certificate	55 (35.3%)	27 (28.1%)	28 (46.7%)
	Middle school (grades 6–8) with certificate	27 (17.3%)	20 (20.8%)	7 (11.7%)
	Secondary/vocational school	63 (40.4%)	41 (42.7%)	25 (41.7%)
Occupation	Household	78 (50.0%)	46 (47.9%)	32 (53.3%)
	Blue-collar worker	52 (33.3%)	37 (38.5%)	15 (25.0%)
	Self-employed	13 (8.3%)	8 (8.3%)	5 (8.3%)
	White-collar worker/ public servant	12 (7.7%)	4 (4.2%)	8 (13.3%)
	Student	1 (0.6%)	1 (1.0%)	0
Employment status	Employed	50 (32.1%)	30 (31.3%)	20 (33.3%)
	Unemployed (unemployed/on sick leave/jobless/pensioner)	106 (67.9%)	66 (68.8%)	40 (66.7%)
Length of residence in Germany	M (in years)	–	14.15	–
	SD	–	10.81	–
	Range		1–35

Figure 1. Mean values of sense of coherence: comparison of patients of Turkish origin in Germany, local Turkish patients, norm values for healthy Turkish and German persons and a German sample with mental symptoms.

Table II. Correlation coefficients between sense of coherence, depression (BDI), socio-demographic and immigration-specific variables.

Variables	Age	Education	BDI score	Length of residence in Germany
SOC (both groups)	−0.016	0.130	−0.573*	–
SOC (local Turkish patients)	0.091	0.041	−0.512*	–
SOC (Turkishimmigrants)	−0.090	0.193	−0.592*	−0.012

*p ≤ 0.001.

Table III. Influences on the total BDI score.

Independent variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
	(Both groups)	(Local Turkish patients)	(Turkish immigrants)
Group	−0.117	–	–
Gender	−0.084	−0.064	0.005
Age	0.074	−0.132	0.157
Education	0.065	0.105	−0.028
Employed (yes/no)	−0.155*	−0.004	−0.318**
Married (yes/no)	−0.027	−0.115	0.053
Length of stay in Germany	–	–	0.161
Sense of coherence	−0.547***	−0.512***	−0.609***
Adjusted R-square	0.342	0.249	0.515
F	37.662***	20.585***	27.561***

*p ≤ 0.05; * *p ≤ 0.01; *** p ≤ 0.001.