Grandfamilies' Resilience Profiles: A Latent Profile Analysis

Background and purpose: About 2.07 million U.S. grandparents step in to raise their grandchildren when their biological parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.). These grandparents experience a high level of stress and challenges, and the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified these experiences, highlighting the importance of understanding grandfamilies’ resilience. Previous research has focused less on resilience at the family level using a person-centered clustering approach. To fill this gap, the present study aims to identify grandfamilies’ resilience profiles using a latent profile analytic approach.

Methods: Using a convenience sampling method, we collected survey data (N = 288) from grandparents raising grandchildren in the United States from May 2021 to February 2022. Grandfamilies’ resilience was measured using the following indicators: seeking professional guidance, seeking spiritual support, seeking friends and/or neighbors’ support, seeking family support, and having confidence in the family’s ability to solve problems (McCubbin, Olson, & Larson, 1981). Descriptive analyses were conducted using SPSS V.27, and a latent profile analysis was conducted using Mplus V.8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) to identify grandfamilies’ resilience profiles.

Results: The average age of grandparents was 55 years old, with 71% of them being female and 65% being white. Latent profile analysis was conducted from 2-class model to 10-class model, and we used AIC, BIC, and entropy to compare the model fit. The model fit indices suggested that 2-class profiles fit data the best. Two distinct profiles of grandfamilies resilience were defined as (1) high interpersonal resilience profile (42.2%) and (2) high spirituality and family confidence resilience profile (57.8%). The high interpersonal resilience profile presented a group of grandfamilies who had relatively high levels of seeking professional guidance, friends and/or neighbors’ support, and family support but lower levels of spirituality and family confidence. Conversely, the high spirituality and family confidence resilience profile indicated a group of grandfamilies who had very high levels of spirituality and family confidence but low interpersonal level resilience.

Conclusions and Implications: These interesting findings provide us with a new understanding of grandfamilies’ resilience and suggest developing and implementing tailored interventions to improve grandfamilies’ resilience. For some grandparents, strengthening their networks and improving their interpersonal relationships would enhance their family resilience, while other grandfamilies may be more likely to benefit from faith-based interventions to keep their positive outlook on life’s adversities while also improving their family confidence in solving problems. Consequently, strengthening these families’ resilience will improve grandparents’ and grandchildren’s well-being.