Psychological adjustment among Soviet immigrant physicians: distress and self-assessments of its sources

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychological distress of Soviet immigrant physicians in Israel and their self-assessed sources of this distress. The subject of this study included 385 (152 men and 233 women) Soviet immigrant physicians who had participated in preparatory licensing courses. The investigation shows that women have higher scores of distress than men in Global Stress Index of the Brief Symptom Inventory and its subscales which reflect anxiety. A comparison of Global Stress Index of the subjects of this study with U.S. and British published non-patient norms shows a significantly higher distress level among the immigrant physicians. Most of the respondents evaluated their psychologic state before immigration to Israel as better (303 or 78.7%). These assessments are found to be directly dependent on the stress load of the respondents at the time of the interview. Perception of the sources of absorption difficulties and distress scores are also found to be in close dependence. The results of the multiple regression analysis indicate that both sex and distress are statistically significant predictors of immigrants' estimation of their difficulties. However, it is the level of distress that has the greatest influence on the assessments of the respondents.