The proposed research project will whether single women heads of households (SWHH) are at greater risk of psychiatric symptomatology when compared with other single or married women not heads of households in the general population. Also, whether the characteristics of the their social support network contributes to explain the risk for psychopathology among SWHH. Likewise, the proposed project will study the patterns of health and mental health service utilization among SWHH. The proposed study builds upon research performed by the NIMH-funded project """"""""Psychiatric Epidemiology of Mental Disorders in Puerto Rico"""""""" (MH36230) conducted at the University of Puerto Rico's Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC). The proposed research project, to be conducted at UPR-MSC as well as at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP), entails a secondary analysis of the data bank developed by UPR-MSC's 1987 epidemiological survey. Hence, the new research project will benefit from UPR-MSC's previous work through extended analysis of a data bank that contains broad and valuable information, closely representative of Puerto Rico's adult population.
The specific aims of the proposed study are: 1) to describe the socio- demographic characteristics of single women heads of households (SWHH) in Puerto Rico; that is: age, education, employment, sources of income, and residential zone; 2) to analyze whether SWHH are at greater risk of specific psychiatric symptomatology when compared with single or married women in the general adult population of Puerto Rico who are not heads of households; 3) to analyze frequency of health and mental health patterns of utilization of services among SWHH as compared to women in the general population who are not heads of households; 4) to describe the social support system of SWHH when compared to other women; 5) to explore whether background characteristics, stressors and social support variable mediate the risk of mental health outcomes of SWHH.
| Burgos, N M; Lennon, M C; Bravo, M et al. (1995) Depressive symptomatology in single women heads of households in Puerto Rico: a comparative analysis. Women Health 23:1-18 |
