BMC Public Health 2007, 7:27 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/27 Table 5: Association Between Country of Birth and Outcome Variables Adjusted for All Dependent Variables, Including the Migration- Related Variables Language Spoken at home and Years in Sweden: SALLS 1994–2001, Age 25–84 (Swedish-born respondents excluded) Country of birth Sample size (n) Eastern Europe Poland 161 Other 164 Psychiatric illness Model 1a Model 2a Model 3a Model 4a Model 1b Model 2b Model 3b Model 4b OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables (without migration-related ones) OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables + Language at home OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables + Years in Sweden OR (95% CI) adjusted for all variables, incl. both Language at home and Years in Sweden 2.06 (1.00–4.24) 2.01 (0.98–4.13) 2.11 (1.02–4.35) 2.05 (1.00–4.24) 1.92 (0.90–4.08) 1.96 (0.93–4.12) 1.94 (0.91–4.14) 1.97 (0.93–4.18) Psychosomatic complaints OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables (without migration-related ones) OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables + Language at home OR (95% CI) Adjusted for all variables + Years in Sweden OR (95% CI) adjusted for all variables, incl. both Language at home and Years in Sweden 2.03 (1.10–3.78) 1.30 (0.71–2.38) 2.04 (1.07–3.79) 1.29 (0.70–2.38) 1.67 (0.87–3.19) 1.12 (0.60–2.11) 1.65 (0.86–3.16) 1.10 (0.60–2.53) Abbreviations: SALLS, Swedish Annual Level of Living Survey; OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval. The former Soviet Union 60 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) 1 (Reference) sians or Russian Jews), geographically defined communi- ties, psychiatric patients, or other selected groups that have higher risks of mental disease [9,33,53]. In contrast, the present study included immigrants from various FSU republics living anywhere in Sweden. This was ensured by drawing our sample from the national representative sam- ple of permanent Swedish residents recorded in the Regis- ter of the Total Population and interviewed in SALLS between 1994 and 2001. We can only speculate as to why immigrants from the FSU did not have higher odds of poor self-reported mental health than the Swedish-born host population and had lower odds than immigrants from the other former Soviet Bloc countries (nonsignificant). It is possible that persons born in the FSU are afraid of stigmatization, have a more negative attitude toward mental disorders and their treat- ments (as a legacy of the Soviet abuse of mental diagnoses and medical services for political purposes in the past) and are inclined not to report poor mental health or seek help for mental disorders. The lower odds for psychoso- matic complaints among immigrants from the FSU com- pared to immigrants from Poland might also be explained by the fact that persons born in the FSU are inclined to hide their private feelings [54], to be ashamed of their physical and psychological problems, and tend not to share them with others [55]. However, Hitch and Rack [41] give another explanation, suggesting that weaker mutual support in Polish communities than in Ukrainian ones, social seclusion from the host population and the fellow nationals might partly explain the higher incidence of first admissions to psychiatric hospitals among Polish immigrants than Ukrainian immigrants. Another possible explanation of the different odds for poor self-reported mental health among immigrants from the former Soviet Bloc is better mental health among per- sons born in the FSU than among those born in the other former Soviet Bloc countries. According to the World Health Organization (Health for All Database) in 2002, the prevalence of mental disorders in the FSU (2.8%) was lower than in the former Czechoslovakia (3.5%) and Poland (3.2%). It is very difficult, however, to compare rates of self- reported mental health since the self-administered screen- ing instruments in psychiatry show different cut-off points in different cultures. For example, psychosomatic complaint is a culturally sensitive variable because representatives of every nation have their specific way of somatizing or Page 9 of 12 (page number not for citation purposes)