178806 Family routines as a protective factor for adolescents affected by maternal HIV/AIDS

Wednesday, October 29, 2008: 1:15 PM

Debra A. Murphy, PhD , Psychiatry/ISAP, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
William D. Marelich, PhD , Department of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, CA
Diane M. Herbeck, MA , Psychiatry/ISAP, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Diana L. Payne, PhD , Psychiatry/ISAP, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
     
Background: Parenting skills, such as family routines and parental monitoring, may serve as a protective factor for early/middle adolescents affected by maternal HIV/AIDS.

Methods: Mothers living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County with a well child (age 10 - 17 years old), were interviewed (English or Spanish) at 6-month intervals (118 mother/child pairs); mothers' medical charts were reviewed. Individual growth models were utilized for longitudinal analyses. Age, family routines, and parental monitoring were used as time-varying covariates to predict child outcomes of depression, anxiety, externalizing behaviors, and self-concept. Further analyses were performed to evaluate the effects of stability of these routines and parental monitoring on the same outcomes.

Results: Conditional growth models show that as family routines increase, there are significant declines in child depression, anxiety, and externalizing behavior, and an increase on the self-concept subscales of intellectual and school status, and happiness/satisfaction (p < .05). Parental monitoring showed similar results, with higher levels of monitoring associated with declines in depression, physiological anxiety, and externalizing behavior and alcohol use. Stability of routines and monitoring showed a similar pattern of associations. Additional correlation analyses reveal that mothers' physical wellness (due to HIV/AIDS) is a direct influence on family routines and parental monitoring; poorer illness status is associated with lower routines and monitoring.

Conclusions: This is one of the first studies to show how the effects of HIV/AIDS influence parenting and family functioning; parent interventions need to teach parenting skills of healthy family routines and monitoring.

Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss how family routines may impact child outcomes among children affected by maternal HIV. 2. List the child outcomes associated with level of family routines, and with stability of family routines. 3. Create a plan for how family routines could be incorporated into parent interventions to improve family functioning based on this data.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Child/Adolescent

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the Principal Investigator of this study.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Comprehensive Approaches to Reducing HIV Among Adolescents
See more of: HIV/AIDS