Racial/Ethnic Differences in Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Religious Beliefs and Maternal Relationship Satisfaction

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Depression is among the most common forms of adolescent psychopathology and is associated with both short-term and long-term impairments on an adolescent’s socioemotional functioning. Adolescent depression occurs within the context of interpersonal relations and intrapersonal values and beliefs. Research has demonstrated that positive aspects of relationships with parents are associated with lower levels of adolescents’ depressive symptoms (Rudolph, 2008). Religious beliefs have also been shown to serve as a protective factor against adolescent depressive symptoms (Petts, 2014). However, limited research has investigated how these factors are associated with adolescent depression across different racial and ethnic groups.
The present study examined the contributions of adolescent’s relational closeness to mothers and their religious beliefs on their self-reported depressive symptoms across three racial and ethnic groups. Participants were 2347 European Americans, 927 African American/Black, and 408 Hispanic/Latino adolescents at 15.42 years of age (SD=1.75) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Wave I). Adolescents’ depressive symptoms were measured with The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). Adolescents also reported their religious beliefs and relational closeness to mother and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to create latent factors for adolescents’ religious values and their relational closeness to mother.
Mplus was used to conduct multigroup structural equation modeling. Model fit statistics indicate that the hypothesized model fit the data well, x2=184.691, P<.00; RMSEA=.05, CFI=.97, SRMR=.04. Results show that for European American (ß=-.25, p<.00), Black/African American (ß=-.27, p<.00), and Hispanic/Latino (ß=-.25, p<.00) adolescents’ relational closeness with mother was negatively associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Significant associations between adolescents’ religious beliefs and depressive symptoms were only found within the European American group (ß=.06, p=.02). These results indicate that relational closeness to mothers during adolescence is associated with decreased depressive symptoms across all three racial and ethnic groups whereas religious beliefs among European American adolescents may be associated with increased depressive symptoms during adolescence.
This study demonstrates the similarities and differences across racial and ethnic groups in the associations between adolescents’ maternal relational closeness, religious beliefs and depressive symptoms. Results of this study contribute to our understanding of how social institutions of family and religion influence adolescents’ psychological well-being and could have important implications for current and future parenting and family interventions that focus on addressing interpersonal and intrapersonal factors related to adolescents’ depressive symptoms.

Authors

• Karis Inboden, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Patricia Pittman, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Micah Gerhardt, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author