The Impact of Perceived Discrimination on Depression Among Latina Women: The Mediating Effect of Coping Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem

Background and Purpose: Given today's political climate, Latinas are increasingly more vulnerable to experience discrimination stemming from heightened racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Discrimination, which involves the perception of unequal treatment, curtails equity, social justice, and well-being for this ever growing segment of the Latino and US populations. A greater understanding of the adverse effects of discrimination on psychological well-being among Latinas can help inform effective social work practice, public policy, and research. This study examined the relationships among perceived discrimination, coping self-efficacy, self-esteem and depression with a sample of Latinas. It was hypothesized that 1) perceived discrimination is positively associated with depression and negatively associated with coping self-efficacy and self-esteem and 2) self-esteem and coping self-efficacy mediate between perceived discrimination and depression.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 374 women of Latin American heritage in community settings. Their mean age was 39, 43.4% had not completed high school, and 66.6% had an annual household income below $24,999. Measures included the NLAAS Discrimination Scale, Coping Self-Efficacy Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and CES-D. Structural Equation Modeling was employed for the primary analysis.

Results: The model fits of the measurement model and hypothesized model were good. An alternative model was re-specified after excluding one insignificant direct path between perceived discrimination and depression. The final model did not significantly worsen the model fit compared to the hypothesized model and showed a relatively good model fit (RMSEA=.082, TLI=.956, CFI=.967). The results showed that there is no direct effect between perceived discrimination and depression. However, perceived discrimination showed an indirect effect on depression mediated by coping self-efficacy and self-esteem. Perceived discrimination showed negative associations with self-efficacy (β=-.326, p<.001) and self-esteem (β=-.271, p<.001). Coping self-efficacy (β=.235, p<.001) and self-esteem (β=.266, p<.001) showed negative associations with depression.

Conclusions and Implications: The results suggest that perceived discrimination is a risk factor for depression mediated by coping self-efficacy and self-esteem. Among Latinas, culturally sanction responses to the tremendous adversity inherent to their historically oppressive environments may help explain this finding. These responses may include fatalism, external locus of control, controlarse, resignarse, and resilience. Assessing routinely for perceived discrimination to ascertain its potential deleterious psychological impact and collaboratively devising intervention strategies that empower and strengthen coping self-efficacy and self-esteem is crucial in practice with Latinas. Advocacy for laws and policies that more effectively eradicate discrimination are sorely needed. The elimination of this insidious social malady could facilitate achieving equal opportunity, equity, and justice. Further research can help elucidate the complex interrelationships among perceived discrimination and psychological well-being among Latinas and other also at risk populations.