(PS5-B30) Impact of Perceived Social Standing & Social Support on Mental Health, Somatization, & Life Quality in South Asian Immigrants

Introduction
Perceived social standing reflects subjective social status (SSS) in relation to others in the same group and perceived social support (PSS) refers to the perception of mental, material, and overall support provided by family/friends/others. Both higher SSS and PSS are associated with better life quality and physical/mental health and less internalized mental health stigma (MHS). These relationships in traditional, collectivist Asian cultures may differ since sharing concerns may burden people in your circle, embarrass the family, and may reflect poorly on the individual/family/community. Among South Asian (SA) immigrants, mental health concerns are kept within the family, friends, or religious leaders and may be expressed as somatic symptoms. Quality of life (QoL) is an umbrella term used to overall well-being across various domains of existence including physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of SSS and PSS on internalized MHS, mental help-seeking intentions (MHSI), somatic symptoms, and QoL within South Asian immigrants in the United States.

Method

Participants (N = 87; M_age = 26.51, SD_age = 9.05; Female = 55) were recruited nationally in the U.S. via Qualtrics.

Measures

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MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (SSS) (Adler et al., 2000)

Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988)

The Stigma Scale (King et al., 2007) – Modified

The Mental Help Seeking Intention Scale (MHSIS; Hammer & Spiker, 2018)

Tension Scale (Weaver, 2017)

EUROHIS-QOL (Schmidt et al., 2006)

Results
Pearson correlations were computed using IBM SPSS.  Results indicated that SSS was positively associated with PSS (r = .41, p = < .001). QoL was positively associated with SSS (r = .58, p = < .001) and PSS (r = .62, p = < .001). Somatic symptoms were found to be negatively associated with SSS (r = -.24, p = .038) and PSS (r = -32, p = .006). No significant correlations were found between SSS and MHS (r = .19, p = .09) or MHSI (r = .094, p = .41); however, PSS was found to be positively correlated with MHS (r = .31, p = .009). No significant correlations were found between PSS and MHSI (r = .095, p = .42).

Discussion
Consistent with previous research findings, the results of this study indicated that higher self-reports of SSS and PSS were associated with increased perceived QoL and lower somatization of psychological distress. PSS was found to be associated with lower stigma associated with mental health but not with intention to seek help. These data suggest that while higher perceived social standing and supportive interpersonal relationship among Asian immigrants may lead to better life quality, decreased physical symptoms, and attitudes towards mental health, they are not associated with greater intent to act in obtaining mental health help. These data reflect challenges of the immigration process, where sometimes attitudes may be easier to change than intent or behavior associated with the intent. The correlational nature of the data does not suggest causality.