Examining the Impact of Sociocultural Influences, Psychosocial Stressors, and Cognitive Vulnerabilities on Development of Depressive Symptoms in Latino Adolescents

Background: Latino adolescents consistently report the highest levels of depression, and Latina adolescents attempt suicide significantly more than their non-Hispanic peers. Relatively little research has evaluated why these disparities exist. The purpose of this study was to examine individual- and contextual- level factors associated with the development of depressive symptoms in Latino adolescents.

Methods: Rural Latino adolescents (N=123, 12-18 years) completed standardized measures (Spanish or English) assessing theoretically guided variables (i.e., stressful events, negative inferential style, rumination, acculturation, discrimination, ethnic identity, familism, family conflict and cohesion, and depressive symptoms). Relationships between and among constructs were evaluated with appropriate bivariate and multivariate statistics.

Results: Elevated depressive symptoms were associated with higher levels of stressful events (r=.571, p<.001), rumination (r=.776, p<.001), negative inferential style (r=.461, p<.001), discrimination (r=.347, p=.004), and family conflict (r=.376, p<.001) , and lower levels of familism (r=.277, p=.002), ethnic identity (r=-.208, p=.024), and family cohesion (r=-.273, p=.003). Hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated the full model explained 68% of the variance in depressive symptoms (R²=.683, p<.001). After controlling for study variables, rumination (β=.667, p<.001), family conflict (β=.210, p=.004), familism (β=.131, p=.046), and ethnic identity (β=.140, p=.028) were all unique contributors to depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: Study results provide strong support for the role of rumination in the development of depressive symptoms as well as the additional contributions of cultural and contextual variables such as family conflict, ethnic identity, and familism. These salient factors should be targeted in the construction of culturally relevant depression prevention and treatment interventions for Latino youth.