A Longitudinal Test of the Parent–Adolescent Family Functioning Discrepancy Hypothesis: A Trend toward Increased HIV Risk Behaviors Among Immigrant Hispanic Adolescents

Abstract

Parent-adolescent discrepancies in family functioning play an important role in HIV risk behaviors among adolescents, yet longitudinal research with recent immigrant Hispanic families remains limited. This study tested the effects of trajectories of parent–adolescent family functioning discrepancies on HIV risk behaviors among recent-immigrant Hispanic adolescents. Additionally, we examined whether and to what extent trajectories of parent-adolescent family functioning discrepancies vary as a function of gender. We assessed family functioning of 302 Hispanic adolescents (47% female) and their parent (70% female) at six time points over a three-year period and computed latent discrepancy scores between parent and adolescent reports at each timepoint. Additionally, adolescents completed measures of sexual risk behaviors and alcohol use. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to determine the feasibility of collapsing parent and adolescent reported family functioning indicators onto a single latent discrepancy variable, tested model invariance over time, and conducted growth mixture modeling (GMM). GMM yielded a three-class solution for discrepancies: High-Increasing, High-Stable, and Low-Stable. Relative to the Low-Stable class, parent–adolescent dyads in the High-Increasing and High-Stable classes were at greater risk for adolescents reporting sexual debut at time 6. Additionally, the High-Stable class was at greater risk, relative to the Low-Stable class, in terms of adolescent lifetime alcohol use at 30 months post-baseline. Multiple group GMM indicated that trajectories of parent-adolescent family functioning trajectories did not vary by gender. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies: Existing Findings and Future Directions

“…To cite a few examples, the Korelitz and Garber (2016) meta-analysis of 85 studies focuses on parental acceptance, behavioral control, and psychological control; Haman, Dirks, DeLongis, and Chen focus on family routines and chaos; Rote and Smetana (2016) focus on parents' ''right to know'' about teen's activities, knowledge about such activities, and mother-teen relationship; Skinner and McHale (2016) focus on parent-adolescent conflict in nine areas of life (e.g., chores, appearance, school, religion, etc. ); and Córdova et al (2016) focus on family communication, parent-adolescent communication, family cohesion, parental monitoring, parent support, and parent involvement. In short, the construct of family functioning encompasses how family members interact and communicate with each other.…”

“…For example, Human et al (2016) used response surface analysis (RSA), which uses coefficients from polynomial regression to graphically depict patterns of congruence and incongruence for an independent variable (e.g., family chaos) and an outcome variable (e.g., teen depression). Córdova et al (2016) used longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis (LCFA) to determine if indicators of family functioning on six measures rated by parents and adolescents (focus on family communication, parent-adolescent communication, family cohesion, parental monitoring, parent support, and parent involvement) could be represented by a single latent variable for each kind of informant and if the CFA structure was stable over time. They then calculated family functioning discrepancy scores at each of six time points over 3 years based on latent differences and submitted these six score profiles to LPA, which yielded three LPA classes.…”

“…Four other articles reported findings for U.S. ethnic minority samples, with two of the studies involving African-American families (Johnson et al 2016;Skinner and McHale 2016) and two involving Hispanic families (Córdova et al 2016;Valdes et al 2016). The rest of the 13 empirical reports (excluding the Korelitz and Garber (2016) meta-analysis and the De Los Reyes and Ohannessian (2016) Introduction) used mixed community samples, with European-American/ Caucasian families comprising from 40 % of the sample (Jager et al 2016) to 81 % (Metzger et al 2016).…”

“…Only 27 % of the mothers had a post-high school education. In contrast, Córdova et al (2016) studied 302 Hispanic adolescents (mean age 14.5 years) who had arrived in the U.S. within 5 years of the baseline assessment. Families were recruited in Miami (61 % Cuban) or Los Angeles (70 % Mexican), and median family incomes were $34,521 in Miami and $27,028 in Los Angeles.…”

“…In many cases, this could be done within the same basic sampling frame. For examples, research conducted in cities such as Los Angeles (like the Córdova et al (2016) study) could obtain not only Hispanic students but also AfricanAmerican, Asian, and European-American students attending schools in the same district. Even if only one cultural group is studied, studies could be designed to allow for comparisons based on SES and family structure.…”