Although immigrants generally have poorer health and higher psychological distress than the native population, information on Kurdish immigrants′ psychological well-being is limited. The aims of the study were to examine the association between ethnicity and poor psychological well-being, and to assess the relationships between socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported health, somatic pain, gastrointestinal complaints and poor psychological well-being. Methods: Immigrants with self-reported Kurdish ethnicity (men, <i>n</i>=111; women, <i>n</i>=86) in Sweden from the national sample of immigrants aged 2760 and 1407 Swedes (1996) were studied. Unconditional logistic regression was performed using the Stata Software program. In the logistic model adjusted for age, sex, employment and self-reported health, the odds ratio for Kurdish-born subjects for having poor psychological well-being is twice as high as for Swedish-born subjects. Subjects with poor self-reported health had more than a threefold higher odds ratio for having poor psychological well-being compared with those with good self-reported health. Furthermore, being female, having somatic pain and recurrent gastrointestinal complaints regardless of ethnicity increased the odds for having poor psychological well-being. Being Kurdish-born and/or reporting poor health in addition to age, female gender, somatic pain and recurrent gastrointestinal complaints is significantly and independently related to poor psychological well-being even when adjusted for all confounders.
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