Language and Culture: Associations with Disclosure and Mental Health in Latinx Adolescents with Type-1 Diabetes

• In Event: The role of culture and language in parent-child emotional communication: From storybooks to disease management

Abstract

Parental involvement in children's type 1 diabetes management becomes increasingly important during adolescence (Wiebe et al., 2016). Adolescents can facilitate parental involvement through voluntary disclosure (Berg et al., 2017) which may be particularly important in Latinx families given the central role of family in Latinx culture (Lopez, 2006). Indeed, adolescent disclosure is the primary method by which parents gain knowledge about their adolescents’ diabetes-related problems in Latinx youth. Adolescent disclosure has been associated with various positive outcomes including psychological well-being (i.e. fewer depressive symptoms) (Tucker et al., 2018) and emotional disclosure, in particular, functions to solicit support (Pentina & Zhang, 2017) and regulate negative emotions (Lepore, Greenberg, Bruno, & Smyth, 2002). However, immigrants and their children are frequently not proficient in a common language due to children mastering the new language faster than their parents (Schofield et al., 2016). Language gaps between parents and their adolescents have been associated with lower levels of parent-adolescent communication about sensitive topics and with less observed parent-adolescent communication in general (Schofield et al., 2016).

The current study examined whether cultural factors (generation status and language) impact adolescent emotional disclosure to parents during real-time interactions in a sample of Latinx adolescents (N=68, 24% female; Mage=12.34 years, SD=1.56) and the parent most involved in their diabetes care. We also tested whether adolescent emotional disclosure was associated with adolescent mental health (depressive symptoms). Specifically, we hypothesized that adolescents of later generation status and their parents would be more likely to be proficient in the same language, which in turn would predict more adolescent disclosure during the conversation, which in turn would predict fewer depressive symptoms (see Figure 1).

Parent-adolescent dyads engaged in a 10-minute discussion about a topic of frequent conflict related to adolescents’ diabetes management. Conflict discussions were coded for frequency, duration, and depth of emotional disclosures (see Main et al., 2018). Parents completed demographic information including theirs and their adolescent’s country of origin (generation status), and adolescents reported depressive symptoms using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977). Language discrepancy was determined based on whether the adolescent’s reported primary language matched the language primarily spoken during the discussion.

Analyses revealed some important differences in disclosure as a function of cultural factors and an association between disclosure and mental health. Specifically, adolescent emotional disclosure was positively correlated with the frequency of adolescent generational status and with adolescent depressive symptoms (see Table 1). In addition, path analysis supported the proposed model in which earlier generation status predicted the presence of a language discrepancy, which predicted less frequent emotional disclosures, which in turn predicted higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms. (see Figure 1).

Findings indicate that when adolescents and parents are proficient in a common language, adolescents disclose more to their parents, which in turn predicts fewer depressive symptoms. Thus, language discrepancies are one mechanism through which acculturative conflicts may arise due to poorer parent-adolescent communication. Implications for studying parent-adolescent communication in understudied populations and possible interventions with culturally diverse chronic illness populations will be discussed.

Authors

• Janice Disla, University of California
  Presenting Author

• Alexandra Main, University of California, Merced
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carmen Kho, North Dakota State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maritza Miramontes, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deborah Wiebe, University of California, Merced
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Raymond, Children's Hospital Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author