Korean American Adolescent Depression and Parenting

Abstract

PROBLEM-Korean American adolescents tend to experience more mental health problems than adolescents in other ethnic groups.METHODS-The goal of this study was to examine the association between Korean American parent-adolescent relationships and adolescents' depressive symptoms in 56 families.FINDINGS-Thirty-nine percent of adolescents reported elevated depressive symptoms. Adolescents' perceived low maternal warmth and higher intergenerational acculturation conflicts with fathers were significant predictors for adolescent depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS-The findings can be used to develop a family intervention program, the aim of which would be to decrease adolescent depressive symptoms by promoting parental warmth and decreasing parent-adolescent acculturation conflicts. Search TermsKorean American; depression; parental warmth; parental control; parent-adolescent conflict Elevated depressive symptoms are one of the most prevalent mental health problems among adolescents; they are increasing, recurring, and associated with poor school performance, delinquency, running away, substance abuse, and suicide (Hale, Van Der Valk, Engels, & Meeus, 2005;Saluja et al., 2004). Increasing evidence shows that adolescent depressive symptoms are related to the quality of relationships between adolescents and their parents. Adolescents tend to experience elevated levels of depressive symptoms when they perceive their parents to be low in warmth but high in control (Hale et al., 2005;Rapee, 1997), and when they experience more frequent conflicts with their parents (Sheeber, Hops, Alpert, Davis, & Andrews, 1997). These findings are true for both European American and Asian American adolescents (Greenberger & Chen, 1996).Although Greenberger and Chen's (1996) sample included both Chinese and Korean American adolescents, data from the two ethnic groups were combined for analysis. Therefore, this association is not known specifically for Korean American adolescents, who tend to experience more mental health problems than European American adolescents (Choi, Stafford, Meininger, Roberts, & Smith, 2002) or Chinese and Japanese American adolescents (Yeh, 2003). The goal of this study was to examine the associations between perceived parent-adolescent relationships and depressive symptoms in Korean American adolescents. The research questions were: (1) how are parent-adolescent relationships (i.e.,Corresponding author: Eunjung Kim, PhD, ARNP, Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Child Nursing, University of Washington, Box 357262 Seattle WA 98195, Phone: (206) FAX: (206) THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKParental warmth and control are considered to be important dimensions of parenting (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). According to the parental acceptance-rejection theory (Rohner, 2007;Rohner, Khaleque, & Cournoyer, 2007), parents can be placed on a continuum between acceptance and rejection based on how warm they are toward their adolescents. Warm parents are accepting and affectionate. When parents are low in warmth, they tend to b...

Mental Health Problems among Korean American Adolescents

“…These results are consistent with findings from most previous research with Korean American adolescents (Cho & Bae, 2005;Lee et al, 2012;Shrake & Rhee, 2004) and with adolescents in general (Rockville, 2009(Rockville, , 2011. However, the findings are in conflict with one study of Korean American adolescents that found no gender differences in depressive symptoms (Kim & Cain, 2008). As to age differences in mental health problems, older adolescents reported significantly higher levels of rule-breaking behavior.…”

“…With the exception of one study, no age differences in mental health problems have been reported. Lee et al (2012) found that older adolescents had more serious delinquency and school delinquency, whereas other studies found no age differences in any mental health problems (Cho & Bae, 2005;Kim & Cain, 2008;Lee et al, 2012).…”

“…Findings regarding gender differences in mental health problems of Korean American adolescents are inconsistent. Shrake and Rhee (2004) found that females had more internalizing behavior problems than males, whereas other studies found no gender differences in mental health problems (Cho & Bae, 2005;Kim & Cain, 2008). Lee, Yim, Curry, & Rodriguez (2012) reported that females had less school delinquency than males, whereas other studies found no gender differences in delinquency (Lee et al, 2012) or in externalizing behavior problems (Shrake & Rhee, 2004).…”

“…Shin, D'Antonio, Son, Kim, & Park (2011), in an investigation of the relationship between bullying experience and depressive symptoms of 295 Korean American adolescents, found that those who experienced being bullied and those who experienced both being bullied and bullying reported levels of depression above the clinical cut-off score of 16 (M = 18.0 -19.3). Kim and Cain (2008), in their study of parenting and depressive symptoms of 56 Korean American adolescents, found that about 40% of the participants had clinically meaningful depressive symptoms.…”

Mediating effect of intergenerational family conflict between perceived parental warmth and depressive symptoms

“…Because of this, researchers have begun to focus attention on the mental health issues of Korean American adolescents. A cross-sectional study reported that up to 40% of Korean American adolescents experienced high depressive symptoms (Kim and Cain, 2008). Previous studies have found that parental warmth is associated with psychological adjustment, depressive symptoms, and academic achievement among Korean American adolescents (Kim, 2008;Kim and Cain, 2008;Kim and Rhoner, 2002).…”