The Mediating Effects of Social Support on Maltreatment and Internalizing Problems Among Adolescents

Background and Purpose:  The deleterious effects of child abuse and neglect have been well documented; however, less is known about what key factors connect these adverse experiences with outcomes. Prior research suggests that social support may mediate these relationships, although findings have been mixed and limited by the use of retrospective accounts of maltreatment and an absence of a comparison group. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of maltreatment on perceptions of social support and internalizing and externalizing problems, and to use path analytic methods to ascertain whether social support mediated the relationship between maltreatment and emotional and behavioral problems.

Methods:  Cross-sectional data for this analysis was taken from Time 4 of a longitudinal study on the effects of maltreatment on adolescent development funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development. The sample consisted of maltreated youth recruited from active cases of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, as well as a comparison group recruited from the same zip codes as the maltreated youth. The analytic sample consisted of 181 maltreated and 118 comparison youth, between 14-22 years old, evenly distributed across sex, and largely Latino and Black. Emotional and behavioral problems were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist’s internalizing and externalizing subscales (parent report). Social support was assessed through a modified version of the MOS Social Support Survey, allowing for disaggregation by type (e.g., emotional, tangible, positive social interaction) and source of support (e.g., adult family, siblings, friends). A full recursive path analysis was performed using multiple regression equations in order to understand the direct and indirect effects of maltreatment on social support and emotional and behavioral problems.

Results:  Regression analyses revealed maltreatment was significantly associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as several social support subscales. Path analysis showed that maltreatment had direct effects on internalizing behavior (β=.097, p<.05) and the social support subscale, positive interaction with friends (β=-.314, p<.001). Additionally, positive interaction with friends was associated with internalizing behavior (β=-.070, p<.01). Tests of indirect effects showed that positive interaction with friends partially mediated the relationship between maltreatment and internalizing problems (p<.05).

Conclusions and Implications:  This study demonstrated that the relationship between maltreatment and internalizing problems was partially mediated by adolescents' positive interactions with friends. In addition to offering further evidence of the harmful effects of maltreatment, this study’s results demonstrate that social support is a key mechanism involved in maltreatment’s relationship with adverse outcomes. Possible explanations include the presence of distorted support schemata, as well as an absence of supportive resources in the environments in which maltreatment occurs. These findings suggest that having positive interactions with friends may protect maltreated youth from experiencing emotional problems. As such, intervention strategies for maltreated youth may benefit from creating opportunities for adolescents to foster and maintain healthy relationships with peers. This may be particularly important for adolescents in the foster care system given the disruption to their existing social networks via placement.