Influence of Parental Hostility and Socioeconomic Stress on Children’s Internalizing Symptom Trajectories from Childhood to Adolescence
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Date
2024-08-07
Authors
Williams, Lue
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Children and adolescents with elevated internalizing symptoms are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, and other psychopathology later in life. Bioecological theory provides a framework for understanding multi-level influences on the development of internalizing symptoms during childhood and adolescence. The present study investigated predictive links between two bioecological factors (parental hostility and socioeconomic stress) and internalizing symptoms from childhood to adolescence. Hostile parenting has been associated with child and adolescent internalizing symptoms and was examined as an interpersonal factor predictive of longitudinal patterns of internalizing symptoms. Socioeconomic status, which includes parental educational attainment and household income, was examined as a structural stress factor. The study used data from two cohorts in the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program: Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS) and Family Life Project (FLP). The EGDS sample (n = 561) included adopted children across the U.S. FLP participants (n = 1,292) comprised a statistically representative stratified prenatal sample from six targeted rural communities in the eastern U.S. The study employed latent class growth mixture modeling (Jung & Wickrama, 2008) and multinomial regression mediation analysis to test four hypotheses. Analyses identified three distinct heterogenous internalizing symptom classes characterized by relative symptom levels, including low (41%), moderate (39%), and higher (20%). When regressing child sex assigned at birth onto the latent class outcome without controlling for children’s externalizing symptoms, females were more likely than males to belong to the higher internalizing symptom class, as compared with the low and moderate classes, as anticipated. However, these results reversed when children’s externalizing symptoms were included in the model as a covariate; females were more likely than males to belong to the group characterized by low symptom levels in comparison to the higher symptom group. Findings also indicated that increasing levels of parental hostility and socioeconomic stress each predicted membership in the higher symptom class, as compared with the low and moderate symptom classes. A trending indirect effect suggested that parental hostility partially mediated the predictive effect of socioeconomic stress on membership likelihood in the higher symptom class versus the low symptom class. These results are supported by the extant literature and suggest that 1) attention to co-occurring externalizing symptoms is important to how the development of children’s internalizing symptoms is understood and addressed; and 2) intervening on modifiable bioecological stressors may provide important protective influences on children’s internalizing symptom trajectories.
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Keywords
Bioecological theory, Growth mixture modeling, Internalizing symptoms, Parental hostility, Socioeconomic stress