Exploratory study of personal wellbeing of Burmese refugees in the United States

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the personal wellbeing of ethnic Chin Burmese refugees in the United States. Based on a cross-sectional study using a convenience and snowball sample, data on resilience, perceived social support, psychological distress, personal wellbeing, and demographic information were collected via self-administered questionnaires from 204 ethnic Chin Burmese refugees. Bivariate correlation analysis was conducted to assess the relationships among the study variables. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to assess which of the study variables influence personal wellbeing. We also tested the moderating effects of resilience and perceived social support in the relationship between psychological distress and personal wellbeing. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 73 (mean age 35.76), of whom 52% were female, 75.5% were married, and 67.2% were employed, and have lived in the U.S. for a mean of 6.27 years. Across the whole sample, 24.5% reported experiencing symptoms of psychological distress. After adjusting for demographic variables, results of regression analyses revealed that resilience (β =.14, p <.05), and perceived social support (β =.14, p <.05) was significantly related to personal wellbeing; whereas psychological distress (β = −.28, p <.001) was inversely linked to wellbeing. Contrary to theories of resilience and social support, we did not find any moderating effect stemming from the relationship between psychological distress and personal wellbeing. The findings of this study extended existing literature on Burmese refugees in the U.S. by providing information about the factors associated with their personal wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Burmese refugees
• personal wellbeing
• resilience
• perceived social support
• psychological distress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.