Living conditions and emotional profiles of Cambodian, Central American, and Quebecois youth

Objective: To compare Cambodian and Central American adolescent refugees to Quecbec with their Quebec-born peers in regard to emotional and behaviours , problems, feelings of competence, and risk-behaviour profiles, and to exa mine relations between emotional variahles and living conditions in the 3 g roups. Method: The sample consisted of 76 Cambodian, 82 Central American and 67 Qu ebecois youth living in the Montreal urea. The teenagers internalization an d externalization symptoms were assessed using the Child Behaviour Checklis t (CBCL) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR); the YSR also provided a measure o f their feelings of competence. Risk behaviour was reported by the teenager s'. The socioeconomic status of the teenagers' households was taken into ac count in multiple regression analyses conducted for each group. Results: The level of emotional and behavioural problems by teenagers was l owest in Central Americans and highest in Quebecois: the the latter group a lso, reported more risk behaviours than did either, refugee group. The soci oeconomic status of the Cambodian and Central American refugee households w as lower than that of the Quebecois. Living conditions were not a major det erminant of emotional distress in young Cambodians, but low annual income w as associated with internalizing symptoms among Central American youth. The most powerful predictor of externalizing symptoms among the Quebecois yout h was having a single-parent household.. Conclusion: This study underscores the contrast between? the living conditi ons of young Cambodian and Central American refugees to Quebec and those of Quebec-born youth. These refugees precarious socioeconomic status is not a ccompanied by an increase in adolescents' emotional and behavioural problem s.