Support for Independence Mediates between Maternal Warmth and Slower Growth in Depression during Adolescence

Introduction: Maternal warmth buffers against increases in depression during childhood and adolescence. It has been proposed that, as children progress through adolescence, this buffering may begin to occur indirectly through increasing support for autonomy; however, this mediating path has not been tested to date. The present study aims to test this proposal in a nationally representative sample of adolescents.

Methods: The data for the present study were taken from The National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which contains four waves of adolescent- and parent-reported survey data. The initial sample included 6,504 participants, with 5,114 respondents remaining at the final wave of data collection. Adolescent depression was assessed via self-report on a 4-point scale (“Never/Rarely” to “Most/All of the time”). The number of items in the depression scale varied by data wave and included items such as “How often have you cried frequently?” Maternal warmth and support for independence were measured via adolescent response to the statements “Most of the time, your mother is warm and loving toward you” and “Your mother encourages you to be independent” on a 5-point scale (“Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree”).

Results: To examine growth in adolescent depression across the four waves of data, latent growth curve analyses were conducted in MPlus (version 7.0). All analyses controlled for adolescent age, sex, and family socioeconomic status. As expected, depression increased over time (β = .03, p < .001) and maternal warmth buffered against this increase (β = - .03, p < .001). When support for independence was entered as a mediator, a significant indirect effect emerged (μ = - .014, p < .001), supporting the hypothesis that, as children enter adolescence, one way in which maternal warmth buffers against development of depression is via its effect on maternal support for adolescent independence.

Conclusions: These results help to illuminate parent-child processes that may influence development of depression in adolescence, highlighting targets for prevention and intervention programs. Parent support for independence may become increasingly salient as children progress through adolescence.