Depressive Symptoms Among Ethnic Minority Adolescent: The Role of Parental Closeness and Social Cohesion

Background

Literature affirms that parental closeness is a well-known predictor which greatly influences ethnic minority adolescent’s mental health problems, including depressive symptoms. Also, literature supports the relationship between community level social connection (i.e., social cohesion) and mental health, both in terms of its relationship to mortality at the community level and to self-rated mental health on an individual level. However, a comprehensive study focusing on the relationship between parental closeness and social cohesion for ethnic minority adolescents having depressive symptoms has not been undertaken. Thus, the current study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the relations among parental closeness, social cohesion, and adolescent depressive symptoms by a) examining the effects of the parent’s closeness with the adolescent; and b) investigating the role of the social cohesion on depressive symptoms among ethnic minority adolescent.

Method

This study used data derived from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Structural equation modeling was performed with a sample of adolescents at aged 15, who were answered as Black/African, Hispanic/Latino, Other, and Multi-racial, resulting in an ethnic minority only dataset (N = 2,675). Depressive symptoms: An outcome variable was drawn from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), asking five items (e.g., I feel depressed). Parental closeness: The latent variable was collected from mother and father separately (e.g., How close do you feel with your mom/dad?). Social cohesion: The latent variable was constructed from five variables (e.g., People in this neighborhood generally get along with each other). Social control: The latent variable was constructed from four variables (e.g., Neighbors would get involved if children skip school).

Results

The study found a connection between parental closeness, social cohesion, and adolescent depressive symptoms, but not with social control. Structural equation model found that adolescents who had greater closeness with mother and father both, higher social cohesion level were less likely to show depressive symptoms (RMSEA = .055 (90% CI = [.053, .058]); CFI = .966; TLI = .956). Interestingly, adolescents who were closer with father (B = -.099, p < .001) were less likely to show depressive symptoms than with mother (B = -.191, p < .001). In addition, adolescents who had greater closeness with mother and father both were likely to have higher social cohesion (p < .001), which finally influence having fewer depressive symptoms.

Conclusion

The results suggest that not only having great closeness with parent, also living in highly cohesive society as key predictors of ethnic minority adolescent’s depressive symptoms. The results also indicate that adolescents who regularly get along with their neighbors were having fewer depressive symptoms than adolescents who lack such social interaction. The current study carries several important insights for research and practice with ethnic minority adolescent’s depressive symptoms. As societies are increasingly becoming diverse, normative goals of socially cohesive societies, critical for overall success are becoming even more important. Therefore, building social cohesion between community groups and other local agencies/governments are required in order to mitigate the increased potential for ethnic minority adolescent’s depressive symptoms.