The Role of Social Support in the Associations Between Neighborhood Violence and Internalizing Symptoms among Latino Youth
Issue Date
2015-12-31Author
Poquiz, Jonathan Lee
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
36 pages
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
M.A.
Discipline
Clinical Child Psychology
Rights
Copyright held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Latino youth are one of the fastest growing populations in the country and are at a disproportionately higher risk for being exposure to violence in their neighborhoods. Prior research has investigated the mental health outcomes of exposure to neighborhood violence; however, there are few studies on protective factors for the potentially negative outcomes of Latino youth who are exposed to neighborhood violence. It was hypothesized that neighborhood violence would have a curvilinear relationship with depressive symptoms, but a linear relationship with anxiety symptoms. It was also hypothesized that social support, from both family and peers, would moderate the association between neighborhood violence and both anxiety and depression symptoms, with family support expected to have a stronger buffering effect due to the Latino cultural value of familismo. The current sample included 144 Latino adolescents (N = 78 Males; M = 16.25 years, SD = 1.46) from a charter high school in a large, Midwestern city. Participants completed a survey that included self-report measures on neighborhood violence exposure, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and social support. Neighborhood violence exposure was found to have a linear association with both anxiety and depression symptoms. Additionally, neither peer nor family social support moderated the associations between neighborhood violence exposure and internalizing symptoms. Future research should continue examining factors that may buffer exposure to violence in the neighborhood, particularly among Latino youth.
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- Psychology Dissertations and Theses [459]
- Theses [3942]
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