Social support, ethnicity and mental health in adolescents

Abstract

This study identified an independent association between different sources of social support and mental health in a young, ethnically diverse sample. Differences in social support did not explain ethnic differences in psychological distress.

Parents and peers as providers of support in adolescents' social network: a developmental perspective

“…More than a decade ago, Gavazzi (1994) stressed the importance of considering the interaction between family and peers in assessing adolescents' social support, in the same line as Levitt et al (2005) would do subsequently. Other studies focused on the balance and possible compensatory functioning between support from parents and support from friends (van Beest & Baerveldt, 1999), finding data consistent with a tendency for a decrease in family support at the same time as an increase in support from friends in adolescence (Cheng & Chan, 2004;Furman & Buhrmester, 1992;Garnefski & Diekstra, 1996;Klineberg et al, 2006). The role of the father as the element showing the greatest loss as adolescence progresses was also confirmed (Colarossi & Eccles, 2003), as well as significant gender differences (Colarossi, 2001).…”

“…However, research with adolescents has not shown the same intensity as that with adults and the elderly (Malecki & Demaray, 2002). The majority of studies have focused on the relationship between social support measures and emotional disorders such as depression (Carbonell, Reinherz, & Gianconia, 1998;McFarlane, Bellissimo, & Norman, 1995), suicide (Peck, 1987), drug use (Bauman, Faris, Ennett, Hussong, & Foshee, 2007;Ennett et al, 2006;Walker, Mason, & Cheung, 2006), crime (MacNeil, Stewart, & Kaufman, 2000), child abuse (Ezzell, Swenson, & Brondino, 2000) or mental health (Klineberg et al, 2006). For the case of a problem such as teenage pregnancy, as many as 28 social support instruments have been used (Perrin & McDermott, 1997).…”

Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in adults with somatoform disorders

“…Amin et al, 2004] have reported that, in certain psychiatric groups, impaired processing of emotional facial expressions is related to deficits in social functioning, it is plausible that the reported impairment of FER exhibited in the patients with SFD could also have implications for their social functioning. This is important as poor social support has been identified as a significant factor in the maintenance of ongoing psychological distress and in the development of mental illness [Hipkins et al, 2004;Klineberg et al, 2006]. This proposal could be examined in future research using recognized measures of social functioning, such as the social functioning scale [Birchwood et al, 1990] or social problem-solving task [Goddard et al, 1996[Goddard et al, ,1997.…”

Socio-economic inequality in multiple health complaints among adolescents: international comparative study in 37 countries

“…Health complaints such as pain and mental health problems are common among adolescents 1 and such health complaints are sensitive to socio-economic environmental factors [1][2][3] . Poverty is a well-known risk factor for ill health among children and adolescents [4][5][6] .…”