Familism and Latino adolescent depressive symptoms: The role of maternal warmth and support and school support.

Abstract

Objectives: This study examined the relationship between familism and depressive symptoms across relational contexts in adolescence, and whether maternal warmth and support, and school support moderated the relationship between familism and depressive symptoms.Method: A total of 180 Latino adolescents (53% female) in 7th through 10th grades (average age = 14 years) participated in this cross-sectional study. The adolescents lived in an emerging Latino community in a rural area in the U.S. South. Most of the adolescents were Mexican-origin (78%) and born in the United States (60%), while the vast majority of their parents were foreign born (95%).

Social Networks and Mental Health of Rural Latino Adolescents in North Florida

“…Rural Latino adolescents have family and school members as their primary social networks (García et al 2011;Tummala-Narra 2015), which can be protective or risk factors to their mental health. In fact, familism, or a strong connection to the family, is a recurrent theme throughout the literature (Baumann, Kuhlberg & Zayas 2010;García et al 2011;Campos, Ullman, Aguilera & Dunkel-Schetter, 2014;Tummala-Narra 2015;Cupito, Stein, Gonzalez, & Supple 2016). In many instances, the adolescents heavily relied on family support.…”

“…Studies show that Latino adolescents report a higher level of familism when compared to other immigrant populations (Campos et al, 2014). Positive familism and family relations contribute to a decreased risk for depressive symptoms (Campos et al, 2014;Cupito et al, 2016). The positive effects of familism in Latino adolescents, particularly relates to the relationships with their mothers (Baumann et al, 2010;Stacciarini et.…”

“…The positive effects of familism in Latino adolescents, particularly relates to the relationships with their mothers (Baumann et al, 2010;Stacciarini et. al., 2015a;Cupito et al, 2016). Though studies have shown a generally positive relationship between high levels of familism and lowered depressive symptoms, familism can sometimes mean putting the family unit before individual needs, which can contribute to poorer psychological health (Campos et al, 2014).…”

“…School. This theme describes that positive peer social relationships in the school context can reduce depressive symptoms amongst Latino adolescents (Tummala-Narra 2015, Cupito et al, 2016). Along with peers, having a positive relationship with an adult at school who is perceived as a good listener has shown to reduce the occurrence of suicide attempts and ideation (Hall et al 2016).…”

Familism values across the transition to adolescent motherhood: Links to family functioning and Mexican-origin adolescent mothers’ adjustment

“…This may be particularly true for the younger (relative to older) adolescent mothers who are more likely to be experiencing normative increases in depressive symptoms as a function of the transition through early and middle adolescence (Zeiders et al, 2013). To date, evidence suggesting the benefits of strong familism values for reducing youth depressive and internalizing symptoms comes primarily from studies of Mexican-origin youth in community- and school-based settings (Berkel et al, 2010; Burrow-Sanchez, Ortiz-Jensen, Corrales, & Meyers, 2015; Cupito, Stein, Gonzalez, & Supple, 2016; Zeiders et al, 2013). In a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth from early adolescence to young adulthood, for example, Zeiders et al (2013) showed that within-person fluctuations in familism values were related to depressive symptoms, such that on occasions when youth reported higher familism values than their own cross-time average, they also reported fewer depressive symptoms.…”