Poster #30 - Examination of the Longitudinal Associations between Closeness to Parents and Depressive Symptoms across 24 Years

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Depression has been increasing in recent years among adolescents and adults (Mak et al., 2021). According to the attachment theory and the interpersonal theories of depression, relationship quality with parents is related to symptoms of depression (Bowlby, 1969; Chang et al., 2020; Rueger et al., 2016). Previous studies indicated that adolescent-parent closeness was positively associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms in adolescence might lead to higher risk of adult depression (Glied & Pine, 2002). Longitudinal research is needed to increase understanding of the complex, potentially bidirectional relations. In the current study, we investigated the associations between closeness with parents and depressive symptoms from adolescence to adulthood.


Data were taken from the public use National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) study (N = 6,491). Add Health has a nationally representative sample of individuals who were in grades 7-12 at the beginning of the study. There are currently five waves of data (Wave 1 collected from 1994-1995, Wave 2 collected in 1996, Wave 3 collected from 20001-2002, Wave 4 collected in 2008, and Wave 5 collected from 2016-2018). Participants reported their depressive symptoms using three items (i.e., felt that could not shake off the blues; felt depressed; and felt sad) from the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale (Radloff, 1977) across the five waves. A 3-point Likert scale (0 = never or rarely, 3 = most/all of the time) was used, and higher scores indicated higher levels of participants’ depressive symptoms. The Cronbach’s alphas ranged from .80 to .85, indicating acceptable reliability. Perceived closeness between participants and their parents was assessed with one item at each of the five waves. The question asked participants to rate how close they felt to their parents (separate ratings were obtained for mothers and fathers).


Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables are presented in Table 1. As shown, high levels of closeness were observed across the 24-year study period. Results further indicated there were low levels of depressive symptoms across the 5 waves. Moderate levels of stability over time were found for depressive symptoms (rs ranged from .19 to .46), perceived closeness with mothers (rs ranged from .23 to .54), and perceived closeness with fathers (rs ranged from .26 to .60). Significant negative relations were found between measures of depressive symptoms and closeness with mothers (rs ranged from –.19 to –.03) and fathers (rs ranged from –.25 to –.06) across the 24-years. Additional analyses will be conducted to report at the SRCD conference. Specifically, random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM, see Figure 1) will be carried out (Hamaker et al., 2015). These models provide a framework to examine the longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and closeness with parents in terms of both stable, individual differences between people across time and within-person deviations from the stable scores. Results from these analyses will help increase understanding of the complex, bidirectional relations between depressive symptoms and closeness with parents over time.

Authors

• Weiman Xu, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Gilbert Parra