Acculturation, Familism and Mother–Daughter Relations Among Suicidal and Non-Suicidal Adolescent Latinas

Abstract

We examined the role of acculturation, familism and Latina mother-daughter relations in suicide attempts by comparing 65 adolescents with recent suicide attempts and their mothers to 75 teens without any attempts and their mothers. Attempters and non-attempters were similar in acculturation and familistic attitudes but attempters report significantly less mutuality and communication with their mothers than non-attempters. Mothers of attempters reported lower mutuality and communication with their daughters than mothers of non-attempters. Small increments in mutuality decreased the probability of a suicide attempt by 57%. Acculturation and familism do not appear to play major roles in suicide attempts but relational factors may. Instituting school-based psychoeducational groups for young Latinas, particularly in middle school, and their parents, separately and jointly, and focusing on raising effective communication and mutuality between parents and adolescent daughters are important primary prevention strategies. KeywordsLatina/Hispanic adolescents; acculturation; suicide attempts; familism; mother-daughter relations Acculturation among Latino 1 youth has garnered considerable attention in the behavioral and social science literature. Research has associated acculturation with both positive and negative behavioral outcomes (Brayr, Getz, & McQueen, 2003;Ebin, Sneed, Morisky, Rotheram-Borus, Magnusson, & Malotte, 2001;Samaniego & Gonzalez, 1999;Smokowski & Bacallao, 2007). Among Latino youth, symptoms of depression have been directly associated with bicultural stress, particularly with lower levels of acculturation (Mikolajczyk, Bredehorst, Khelaifat, Maier, & Maxwell, 2007;Romero, Carvajal, Volle, & Orduña, 2007). Hovey and King (1996) assert that a quarter of immigrant and second-generation Latino adolescents report levels of depression and suicidal ideation that are positively correlated with acculturative stress.In families, acculturation discrepancies between adolescents Latinos and their parents are well documented (Fuligni, 2004;Phinney & Vedder, 2006). It has long been found that acculturation differences generate conflicts between adolescents and their parents, usually arising from a higher, more rapid acculturation among children and slower, lower acculturation by parents (Smokowski & Bacallao, 2007). Thus, for instance, substance abuse (Martinez, 2006), conduct disorder (Bird, Canino, Loeber, Duarte, Shrout, Davies, & Shen, 2007), dating violence Correspondence should be sent to Luis H. Zayas, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1196, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899. E-mail to E-mail: lzayas@wustl.edu. 1 We use the terms "Latino" and "Hispanic" interchangeably in this paper (see Lopez & Minushkin, 2008, p. iv, for Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, D.C. usage). NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Prim Prev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 December 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript (Hokoda, Galvan, Malcarne, Castañed...

Parent–Child Cultural Value Gaps and Depressive Symptoms Among Mexican American Youth

“…Three studies support the model, where acculturation gaps predicted higher youth substance use and externalizing problems (Martinez 2006;Schofield et al 2008;Zayas et al 2009). However, in two other studies, acculturation gaps were not associated with youth externalizing problems (Lau et al 2005;Pasch et al2006).…”

“…Supporting the argument that specific values need to be measured, Céspedes and Huey (2008) found that cultural value gaps between parents and adolescents in the perceived endorsement of traditional gender roles predicted greater adolescent depressive symptoms, but in this same study, parent-child gaps on a broad measure of acculturation were not related to depression. Additionally, mother-daughter cultural value gaps in familism were associated with greater externalizing symptoms but not internalizing symptoms in a sample of suicide-attempters and non-attempters (Zayas et al 2009). Thus, more research is needed examining specific cultural value gaps to understand how these gaps relate to adolescent functioning.…”

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“…Despite their interesting findings of the link between the three variables mentioned above, by no means were these findings generalizable. However, in line with the Zayas et al [15] study, a review on immigrants from the Indian subcontinent found that family conflicts are associated with suicide among Indian female immigrants [16]. A more generalizable study examined duration of residence (in the foreign country) as a predictor of suicidality among ethnic minority immigrants [17].…”