PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AMONG ETHIOPIAN AND RUSSIAN JEWISH IMMIGRANTS TO ISRAEL - A CROSS-CULTURAL-STUDY

A community survey was conducted examining the differences in levels o f psychological distress and its symptomatology, comparing 110 Ethiopi an-Jewish and 400 Russian-Jewish immigrants to Israel. Psychological d istress was measured by the Talbieh Brief Distress Inventory. Russian immigrants were found to be more distressed than their Ethiopian count erparts and this between-group difference can be attributed to the gre ater relative number of females, older immigrants and those with longe r duration of stay in Israel in the Russian sample. The highest levels of distress were observed for paranoid ideation in the Ethiopian samp le and anxiety and hostility in the Russian sample. These symptoms wer e independent of gender and time since immigration. Russians with long er duration of stay demonstrated higher scores signifying adjustment d ifficulties than their Ethiopian counterparts. These results suggest t hat the differences in levels and symptom expression of psychological distress are determined, to a considerable extent, by demographic fact ors (sex, age) and the differing cultural backgrounds of the two immig rant groups.