Age and Gender as Determinants of Psychological Health for Roma People in Greece

The purpose of this article is to study the psychological characteristics of Roma people in Greece focusing on the relation of age and gender with shame and psychopathology. Shamer scale, Experience of Shame Scale, and Symptom Check List 90 were administered to collect data along with a detailed questionnaire which recorded all social and economic factors that may affect the psychological characteristics studied. There were 361 participants (236 women and 125 men). The authors find that Romani women endorsed higher psychological distress than men at all the symptoms domains encountered: general psychopathology, anxiety, depression, and shame. Further, they suffer from inadequate health care and housing conditions, poor quality of education, and lack of job opportunities. Young Romani women are more educated and they do not have high levels of psychological distress as older persons do. Interventions to improve the health status of Romani women should address gender and ethnic inequalities simultaneously, whereas educational programs should be addressed to older Roma people.