Stepfamily Relationship Quality and Stepchildren’s Depression in Adolescence and Adulthood

Citation

Jensen, Todd M. & Harris, Kathleen Mullan (2017). Stepfamily Relationship Quality and Stepchildren’s Depression in Adolescence and Adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 5(3), 191-203. PMCID: PMC6641552

Abstract

Before reaching adulthood, one third of all youth in the United States will reside in a stepfamily household familial context marked by distinct challenges. Relatively few studies have explored family processes that promote youth adjustment in stepfamilies, and even fewer studies have examined these links across adolescence, emerging adulthood, and beyond. To address these gaps, we use a nationally representative sample of 758 adolescent stepchildren to examine the concurrent and long-term influence of mother-child, stepfather-child, nonresident father-child, and stepcouple relationship quality on stepchildren's depression across three stages of development: adolescence, emerging adulthood, and young adulthood. Results from longitudinal structural equation modeling indicate that higher quality mother-child and stepfather-child relationships are directly associated with reductions in depression during adolescence and indirectly associated with reductions in depression during emerging and young adulthood via prior levels of depression; higher quality stepcouple relationships are directly associated with reductions in depression during emerging and young adulthood.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2167696816669901

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2017

Journal Title

Emerging Adulthood

Author(s)

Jensen, Todd M.
Harris, Kathleen Mullan

PMCID

PMC6641552

Data Set/Study

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health)

Continent/Country

United States

State

Nonspecific

ORCiD

Harris, KM - 0000-0001-9757-1026
Jensen, T - 0000-0002-6930-899X