The Extent of Competency in Socio Cultural Adaptation in Maintaining Psychological Well-Being of Indonesian Migrant Nurses in Japan

International mobility of the “Knowledge worker” such as health care worker, being noticed as a trend in the current globalized world. The increasing number of health care worker migration such as nurses is partly a result of industrialized countries attempting to solve their skill shortage (WHO, 2012) in the caring field. Since 2008, there are approximately 1000 of Indonesian nurses migrated to Japan under bilateral agreement namely Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership agreement (JI-EPA). Migration is the process of social change whereby an individual moves from one cultural setting to another for the purpose of settling down. Successful adaptation in the new culture may lesser their cultural stress and improve their psychological wellbeing.  This study aimed to figure out the relationship between the competency in socio-cultural adaptation and mental health. This study conducted one year after migration, a total of 166 Indonesian nurses who migrated to Japan participate this study. This study utilized the SCAS-R to measure the socio cultural adaptation, whereas the psychological wellbeing measured by General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The result showed that there were statistically significant correlation between the competency in Socio-cultural adaptation and mental health (r=.359, p<0.001). Furthermore, the sequence of correlation coefficient by the component of sociocultural adaptation were, personal interests & community involvement (r=.402, p<0.001), followed by academic/work performance (r=.358 p<0.001), interpersonal communication (r=.289, p<0.001), language proficiency (r=.189, p<0.001) and ecological adaptation (r=.176, p<0.005). This finding can be assumed that the competency in sociocultural adaptation is a critical point in maintaining migrant’s mental wellbeing. Divided by the component of socio-cultural adaptation, this finding assumed that those who able to maintain their personal interest and involving with the community’s activity tend to have better psychological wellbeing in the first year of migration