Intellasia News Services -- Study: Mental health problem in Vietnam refugees

Study: Mental health problem in Vietnam refugees
Source: 08-SEP-2008 Intellasia | CBS2
Sep 8, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
Vietnamese Americans who came to the United States as political refugees are suffering from higher rates of mental health problems than non-Latino whites, according to a new study.

The finding indicates that many Vietnamese Americans are experiencing lingering effects from the war with the US, according to a UC Irvine Centre for Health Care Policy study quoted Friday by the Los Angeles Times.

In the first analysis of its kind for Vietnamese Americans in California, researchers found that Vietnamese Americans over 55 were twice as likely as whites to report needing mental health care, but were less likely to discuss such issues with their doctors, The Times reported.

"The message I want to bring across is that the medical community needs to realise that Vietnamese Americans are a high-risk group," Dr Quyen Ngo-Metzger, who led the survey, said in remarks quoted by The Times. "I hope people realise that mental health is still a problem and not to view all Vietnamese as doing really great."

Many Vietnamese American refugees are suffering from problems related to traumatic experiences fleeing the Communist government after the 1975 fall of Saigon, Ngo-Metzger said.

Former South Vietnamese military officers left behind were sent to Communist "re-education" camps. When they came to the US, many had difficulty adjusting, Ngo-Metzger said, according to The Times.