Depression in Latino adolescents: A cultural discrepancy perspective.

Abstract

Latino adolescents report high levels of depression compared to other youth, yet little is known about how culture-specific factors contribute to risk (Blazer, Kessler, McGonagle, & Swartz, 1994;Roberts, Roberts, & Chen, 1997;Roberts & Sobhan, 1992;Twenge & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002). In this study we evaluated the link between cultural discrepancy (i.e., perceived acculturation and gender role disparity between children and their parents) and depression among children of Latino immigrants. Compared to boys, Latina adolescents reported greater differences in traditional gender role beliefs between themselves and their parents and higher levels of depression. Gender role discrepancy was associated with higher youth depression, with this relationship mediated by increases in family dysfunction. Moreover, a moderator analysis suggested that gender role discrepancy effects may be most pronounced for Latina adolescents. Gender role discrepancy was associated with poorer family functioning for girls but not for boys, although the interaction effect was only marginally significant. These preliminary results point to the importance of considering cultural discrepancy as a contributing factor to youth depression.

Sadly Awake: Short Sleep Duration and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents

“…Our results suggest that Hispanic adolescents may have greater odds of depression than other racial groups, a finding consistent with previous studies [36,37]. The stress of immigrant acculturation may cause increased risk of depression and suicide ideation [38].…”

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

“…However, in two other studies, acculturation gaps were not associated with youth externalizing problems (Lau et al 2005;Pasch et al2006). In terms of youth internalizing symptoms, two studies support the acculturation gap model and found that greater gaps were associated, more specifically, with greater internalizing symptoms and depression (Céspedes and Huey 2008;Schofield et al 2008). However, three other studies did not find a relationship between acculturation gaps and anxiety or depression (Bauman et al 2010;Pasch et al 2006;Zayas et al2009).…”

Stability and change in the mental health of New Zealand secondary school students 2007–2012: Results from the national adolescent health surveys

“…The SDQ has been used widely (Achenbach et al, 2008) but efforts to compare findings for multiple societies have revealed large, cross-cultural reporting effects (Goodman et al, 2012). School level surveys of depressive symptoms using the RADS scale and similar methods to ours have been reported in recent years in Spain (Fonseca-Pedrero et al, 2010), in the USA among Latinos (Céspedes and Huey Jr, 2008), and in Australia (Boyd et al, 2000). The rates of depressive symptoms obtained our study are considerably higher than those reported in Spain and the USA and close to those in Australia.…”