Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

To effectively reduce mental health disparities in the Asian American (AA) communities, we must understand the specific cultural barriers and promoting factors that contribute to these disparities to provide culturally appropriate and effective prevention and intervention programs. This study interviewed thirteen Chinese and Taiwanese American (CTA) older immigrants (aged sixty-five and above) in Southern California to understand the role of depression literacy in CTA older adults’ mental health service utilization behaviors and attitudes and related barriers and promoting factors. The participants responded to questions about a vignette of a CTA older adult exhibiting symptoms consistent with the DSM-V criteria for major depression. We used the Interpretative Phenomenological Approach and the Consensual Qualitative Research approach to analyze data. Results indicated that there in addition to barriers (i.e., cultural stigma, low recognition of depression symptoms), there were also contextual, structural, and personal promoting factors that were associated with positive attitudes toward help seeking. Results of this study have significant clinical and training implications, including support for an integrated health care structure for racial/ethnic minority older adults, the need to have structural facilitators to be in place when working with ethnic minority older adults, including accessibility to practitioners/facilities that offer care in their language of origin, psycho-education to increase knowledge of no- or low-fee care, training to medical and mental health clinicians on the cultural understanding of the holistic nature of health/mental health in this community, and care needs to be more family and system oriented, rather than a individualistic treatment approach.