This material was presented in the 25th European Congress of Psychiatry which was organised by the European Psychiatry Association in Florence, Italy from 1-4th April 2017. I had access to the material as I attended the full Congress. Please note that this material remains the intellectual property of the European Psychiatry Association and its authors and any citation should include a full reference to it. For more information on the EPA and how to become a member, please visit: http://www.europsy.net/

1. The Perceptions of Greek Immigrants in Germany About the Health Illness and Pain in the Context of Mental Health
S. Kotrotsiou1, E. Tsoumani2, E. Kotrotsiou1, M. Gouva3, E. Dragioti4, T. Paralikas1
 Aim: This study aims to investigate the perceptions of health, disease, and pain issues among Greek immigrant, living in Germany, as they were
formed through their previous experiences, their immigration routes, and their experiences in a new sociocultural environment, while taking under
consideration their varying cultural backgrounds.
 Material-Method: This research was based on the personal interpretations of ten Greek immigrant (6 women and 4 men). As to methodology,
qualitative research was employed. The methodological tools used for the collection of the material were semi-structured interviews (face to face),
participant observation, and a field diary. Finally, the method of analysis used for the empirical material was content thematic analysis.
 Results: All participants experienced immigration as an especially stressful period of their lives that changed their state of health (these changes
extend from physical complaints to manifestation of depression). Most person describe life in Germany as difficult due to various problems (loss of
relatives and friends’ social networks, poor language knowledge, isolation, etc). However, the public health system’s organization (regardless any
flaws), which ensures their access to health services, positively contributed in changing their attitudes regarding the issues under question. Lastly, the
 reference to psycho-traumatic situations, transitional life phases, as well as to stimuli in the difficult everyday life feed person’s meaning-makings
about pain.
 Conclusions: The research’s results showed that health and disease are not only biologically determined phenomena. They also are socially determined
situations, given that they are not only related to changes in the individual’s psychology but are influenced by the broader sociocultural environment in
which the individual lives and works.
 Discussion and Conclusions.
 As regards the immigrants’ profile, the participants in this research are mainly young or middle-aged first-generation immigrants, most of them
located in Germany for a long period of time. All of them come from Greek villages and no one of them has a University degree; most of them are
secondary education graduates and work for private enterprises in Germany.
 Immigration was experienced by almost all the participants in this research as an extremely stressful period of time which did not have only an
impact on their emotional state, but on their health status as well. The coverage of everyday life basic needs, communication and contact, the new
mentality, even the different climate conditions were directly affiliated with the experience of intense stress. Many physical symptoms like headache
and dyspnoea, even depression were affiliated with the stressful circumstances experienced during and little time after immigration. In some cases, the
alteration in the health status was immediately apparent. However, there were cases in which the stress repercussions were mainly experienced
afterwards, when the immigrants’ lives were rudimentarily adjusted to the new cultural environment. The German healthcare system exerted
considerable influence on the protection and promotion of their health status, a fact that contributed to the adoption of a prevention – oriented health
behaviour (preventive medical examinations) and to a more frequent seek for medical care.
 As regards the immigrants’ perceptions about whether the immigrants are more susceptible to disease than the indigenous Greeks, we
notice that, for one more time, their previous perceptions define their answers. Therefore, when personal hardships are dominant, the disease is
attributed to stress and life adversities. The religion-based search for the meaning behind the disease is directly connected to the perception of its “God-
sent” origin, which seems to have a twofold function (punitive for the bad person as well as cautionary when there is no apparent reason for the
“punishment”). Finally, according to some participants in the research, the causes of the disease are attributed to the following factors: heredity
reasons, multi-factor interaction (personal lifestyle and behaviour, environmental factors), as well as to human fault (only for mental illnesses).