earticle

영어

This study aimed to examine the prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior, and the comorbidity of these mental health problems across Chinese multicultural adolescents and Korean monocultural adolescents. A range of demographic variables, family relationships, academic achievement, and individual problem behaviors were analyzed to identify the significant correlates. The analysis sample comprised 410 Chinese multicultural adolescents and 38,922 Korean monocultural adolescents, derived from the Korean Adolescent Health Behavior Survey in 2020. Chi-square statistics were estimated to examine significant differences in the prevalence of mental health problems across the two cultural groups. To identify significant correlates of the mental health problems, a series of bivariate logistic regressions were examined separately for the Chinese multicultural and Korean monocultural adolescents. Findings revealed that Chinese multicultural adolescents were at a higher risk for depression, suicidal behavior, and comorbidity of suicidal behavior with depression and anxiety, compared to their Korean counterparts. Despite these significant differences, this study found similar patterns of associations in terms of significant correlates of depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior, and their comorbidities. For both adolescent groups, the higher probability of these mental health problems was associated with drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and smartphone overuse. Further, findings indicated that the impact of smartphone overuse and cigarette use on these mental health problems was higher among adolescents from Chinese multicultural families, compared to those from Korean monocultural families. Findings suggest that the same prevention programs targeting these individual problem behaviors are likely to reduce the risk of mental health problems, whether provided for adolescents from Chinese multicultural or Korean monocultural families, particularly for Chinese multicultural adolescents, where the influence of the problem behaviors on these mental health problems are stronger.