Explores the psychological distress of adolescents from the former Soviet Union who had immigrated to Israel since 1989. Study participants were 560 university students who responded to a series of self-report instruments, including the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a shortened version of the better-known Hopkins Symptom Checklist. Psychological symptoms were classified as somatization, interpersonal-sensitivity, obsessiveness, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychotism. BSI scores were compared with previously reported findings for Israeli-born, American, and Soviet adolescents. Results of this study revealed relatively high symptomatic psychological distress among Soviet immigrant adolescents in Israel, partially explained by separation from homeland and the stress of adjusting to a new environment. However, other risk factors were found to contribute to psychological distress, including a high baseline level of distress in their homeland, pre-immigration stress, and culture-specific patterns of emotional experience whereby, for example, females reported their distress more freely than did males but also tended to internalize their symptoms. A culturally sensitive approach is recommended for the study of psychological adjustment of immigrants.
