Abstract

Background
Within a recent few years, the number multicultural families had been increasing rapidly in Korea. This study was conducted to investigate the characteristics of the function of multicultural families and its determining factors.Methods: The study subjects were 68 foreign women who had been married to Korean men and immigrated to Korea. All participants were registered in one of the three migration support centers in South Jeolla Province. They completed a self-administered questionnaire which evaluated the demographic information, FACES III, and the family APGAR scores. We compared their family function with that of the typical Korean families reported in previous articles.Results: Multicultural families were prone to be an extreme family according to the FACES III. Their family APGAR scores were lower compared to those of ordinary Korean families. Family dysfunction of multicultural families as signifi cantly associated with women's age, hometown, education level, the number of family members, and her religion.Conclusion: Multicultural families may show different features compared to typical Korean families. Family physicians needs to be concerned with functional patterns of multicultural families. Further studies should be followed to understand modifi able factors for fi xing dysfunction of multicultural families.

• Keywords: Family; Function; Cross-culture; Marriage