Elsevier

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Volume 34, Issue 5, September–October 2013, Pages 199-207
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Understanding the role of social support in trajectories of mental health symptoms for immigrant adolescents☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2013.04.004Get rights and content

Highlights

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    Internalizing problems for immigrant youth decreases during the high school years.

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    Acculturative stress predicts withdrawn, somatic, and anxious/depressed symptoms.

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    Social support moderates acculturative stress effects on anxious-depressed symptoms.

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    Gender and generation status differences were found only at baseline (10th grade).

Abstract

This longitudinal study of 286, urban residing, first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents examined the degree to which acculturative stress is related to the developmental trajectories of mental health problems and the role of social support in this process. Participants were recruited when they entered 10th grade and two additional waves of data were gathered at 12-month intervals. Using individual growth curve modeling, the results show significant decline in internalizing mental health problems during the high school years. At the same time, greater exposure to acculturative stress predicted significantly more withdrawn/depressed, somatic, and anxious/depressed symptoms. Additionally, social support moderated the relation between acculturative stress and anxious/depressed symptoms. Gender and generation status differences were found only at baseline (10th grade).

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 289 first- and second-generation immigrant- origin adolescents attending 15 high schools in New York City. Data were gathered in three waves, with 12-month intervals, during the spring semesters of the 10th, 11th and 12th grades of participants' high school education. Participants' average age at the first wave of data collection was 16.23 years (SD = 0.72). Students were recruited at 10th grade after they spent a year in their current high school and were over with the typical

Descriptive analyses

Descriptive analyses were conducted to examine the distribution of the predictor and outcome variables for all three years of data collection (10th, 11th, and 12th grades). Means and standard deviations for withdrawn/depressed, somatic, and anxious/depressed symptoms as well as acculturative stress are presented in Table 1. Intercorrelations among study variables (untransformed) are also presented in Table 1. Prior to commencing the HLM analyses, we first scrutinized these variables for

Discussion

This longitudinal study of urban residing, immigrant origin youth was designed to investigate the trajectories of internalizing mental health symptoms over time, relationships between internalizing mental health symptoms and acculturative stress, and the moderating effect social support may play in these relationships. Our results indicate that internalizing, mental health symptoms generally decreased over time and acculturative stress was significantly related to internalizing symptoms. Most

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    ☆

    This work was funded by grants from New York University and from Spencer Foundation (to Joshua Aronson and Sirin). We are grateful to Joshua Aronson and Michelle Fine for their invaluable help with the New York City Academic and Social Engagement Study (NYCASES) study. We also gratefully acknowledge the time and efforts of the adolescents who participated in this study.

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