2004, Number 6
Salud Mental 2004; 27 (6)
Características psicométricas de la CES-D en una muestra de adolescentes rurales mexicanos de zonas con alta tradición migratoria
Aguilera-Guzmán RM, Carreño GMS, Juárez GF
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Language: Spanish
References: 45
Page: 57-66
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ABSTRACT
Introduction. Mexico has a long migration tradition: thousands of Mexican farm laborers and, more recently, industrial and service workers, constitute an essential sector of the US economy. The effects of this geographical movement on the physical and mental health of adults who participate in this process and the changes it produces in the familial and community sphere have been widely documented. Little is known, however, about the impact of these social processes on the mental health of members of the following generations, i.e., the offspring of international migrants who remain in their communities of origin.Various international studies report that the psychosocial malaise that this process causes in children and teenagers is reflected in behavioral problems during childhood and identity conflicts and constant mood changes during adolescence, which may or may not turn into symptoms of various psychological disorders such as depressive symptomatology.
In Mexico, authors such as López and Moctezuma have pointed out that there is a culture of migration in the communities of origin of these children and teenagers which makes them view migration as “something natural”, since this process has been part of the family history of their inhabitants for several generations. In Mexico, the adolescence of the children of migrants takes place in social contexts where the father’s physical absence as a result of international migration is expected. Studies have also shown that migrants’ wives may display high rates of depressive symptomatology associated with the numerous responsibilities and new tasks they perform as a result of their husbands’ absence. All these circumstances may make these teenagers more vulnerable. It is therefore important to determine whether the father’s physical absence due to international migration is in any way linked to the presence of possible depressive symptomatology in these teenagers.
Method: The aim of this study was to report the psychometric characteristics of a sample of rural adolescents from communities with a strong migratory tradition from the State of Zacatecas on the Radloff Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (1977) and to provide new analytical tools to determine the effects of international migration on their mental health. The CES-D was applied to a sample of 310 adolescents from primary schools, during school hours, with the consent of the school authorities. It formed part of a questionnaire students could answer on their own, including an assessment of self-esteem and suicidal ideation. Its general objective was to study psychological malaise and well-being through everyday stressors and compensators associated with the father’s physical absence due to international migration. Schools were selected through intentional, non-probabilistic sampling to ensure that semi-urban and rural schools were equally represented. Students were assured that the information provided would be confidential. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS, version 10.
Results: The age range of the sample was 11 to 14 years (mean=11.51, s=.72), 51% of the participants were male and 34.2% were the children of migrant fathers. In addition to studying, 37.7% contributed to the family income. The group mean of depressive symptomatology was 19.3 (s=7.6) and no differences were observed between males and females or between the children of migrant fathers and non-migrant fathers. The scale had a .76 Alpha Cronbach, which increases to .84 without the positive affect items that had a low correlation with the total scale. Although factor analysis yielded four factors, the configuration of the latter failed to confirm the factorial structure reported by Radloff. A total of 15.8% of the sample was located above the cut-off point (the mean plus a standard deviation =27).
Being the child of an emigrant was not linked to greater depressive symptomatology, although having to work outside the home was: a higher proportion of adolescents who, in addition to studying, engaged in economic activities to contribute to the family income, had greater depressive symptomatology.
At the end, an analysis was carried out of the Pearson correlation between the overall CES-D score and Coopersmith self-esteem scale, yielding a negative significant correlation (r=-0.341, p‹ 0.01), meaning that the higher the level of depression, the lower a person’s self-esteem. Analysis of depressive symptomatology with suicidal ideation showed a positive, significant correlation through the Pearson coefficient (r=.501, p‹0.001): the greater the symptomatology, the greater the presence of suicidal ideation.
Discussion: Results confirm that the CES-D is a valid, reliable scale for measuring depressive symptomatology in this population. Further research, however, is required on the behavior of items concerning the positive affect factor, since its low correlation with the total scale and its lack of correlation with negative affect, psychosomatic complaints and interpersonal relations factors indicate that, as suggested by Iwata and collaborators (1998), these items are not measuring depressive symptomatology in this population.
Two results call for further comment :1. In this study, it was not the offspring of migrant fathers who obtained high scores in depressive symptomatology, but rather 2. teenagers who studied and worked who obtained scores of “possible cases” of depression. These results can be analyzed from various angles and as a consequence of the interaction of various factors: 1. Although paternal absence due to international migration has been cited as a predictive factor of emotional malaise, particularly among young teenagers, the culture of migration present in these communities may restrict its negative influence by regarding it as “normal”; 2. it is possible that certain characteristics of the mothers of these teenagers may act as a resilience factor to paternal absence and 3) regardless of whether or not teenagers lived with their fathers, there are certain structural situations that directly influence their emotional malaise, such as the conditions of everyday poverty in which they are raised and the lack of real opportunities for development (such as employment, agricultural training, and middle school education), which affect all the population sectors of these rural communities.
It is essential to determine the specific importance of each of the various situations outlined here and their interaction in order to obtain the elements that will enable health professionals to deal with the emotional malaise detected in these adolescents as well as providing a satisfactory response to the structural conditions in which they are raised. Otherwise, “going North” will continue to be their preferred life choice and Mexico will continue to lose a key element of its productive development: its youth population.
REFERENCES
D’AUBETERRE ME: Mujeres y espacio social trasnacional: maniobras para renegociar el vínculo conyugal. En: Barrera D, Oehmichen C (eds). Migración y Relaciones de Género en México. Grupo Interdisciplinario sobre Mujer, Trabajo y Pobreza, AC, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas de la UNAM, 63-85, México, 2000.
MARRONI MG: El siempre me ha dejado con los chiquitos y se lleva a los grandes. Ajustes y desbarajustes familiares de la migración. En: Barrera D, Oehmichen C (eds). Migración y Relaciones de Género en México. Grupo Interdisciplinario sobre Mujer, Trabajo y Pobreza, A.C., Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas de la UNAM, 87-117, México, 2000.