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Family Influences on the Long Term Post-Disaster Recovery of Puerto Rican Youth

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Abstract

This study focused on characteristics of the family environment that may mediate the relationship between disaster exposure and the presence of symptoms that met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for symptom count and duration for an internalizing disorder in children and youth. We also explored how parental history of mental health problems may moderate this mediational model. Approximately 18 months after Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico in 1998, participants were randomly selected based on a probability household sample using 1990 US Census block groups. Caregivers and children (N = 1,886 dyads) were interviewed with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children and other questionnaires in Spanish. Areas of the family environment assessed include parent-child relationship quality, parent-child involvement, parental monitoring, discipline, parents’ relationship quality and parental mental health. SEM models were estimated for parents and children, and by age group. For children (4–10 years old), parenting variables were related to internalizing psychopathology, but did not mediate the exposure-psychopathology relationship. Exposure had a direct relationship to internalizing psychopathology. For youth (11–17 years old), some parenting variables attenuated the relation between exposure and internalizing psychopathology. Family environment factors may play a mediational role in psychopathology post-disaster among youth, compared to an additive role for children. Hurricane exposure had a significant relation to family environment for families without parental history of mental health problems, but no influence for families with a parental history of mental health problems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Erika Felix

  2. College of Education, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea

    Sukkyung You

  3. Clinical Child Psychology Program, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Eric Vernberg

  4. Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Glorisa Canino

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  1. Erika Felix
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  2. Sukkyung You
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  3. Eric Vernberg
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  4. Glorisa Canino
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Erika Felix or Sukkyung You.

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Funding for this study was provided by 5R03 MH085276-02 by the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Felix, E., You, S., Vernberg, E. et al. Family Influences on the Long Term Post-Disaster Recovery of Puerto Rican Youth. J Abnorm Child Psychol 41, 111–124 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-012-9654-3

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