ECPN Student Poster Contestant: Family Functioning in Hispanic Parents of Adolescents: A Latent Profile Analysis

Introduction: Four constructs of family functioning that heavily influence Hispanic adolescent development are effective parent-adolescent communication, parental monitoring of the adolescent’s peers, parental involvement in the adolescent’s school and activities, and positive parenting practices. Classifying parents based on the aforementioned family functioning constructs may not only help us understand family functioning in Hispanics, but also unveil heterogeneity which may be useful for targeting families in preventive interventions. Methods: Data from four previous family-based intervention trials, varying in degree of baseline adolescent risk, were merged (N= 1443 Hispanic-origin immigrant parents of adolescents). Latent Profile Analyses (LPA) were conducted utilizing factor scores of a previously confirmed family functioning measurement model comprised of parent-adolescent communication, parental monitoring, parental involvement and positive parenting practices (CFI = .950, TLI = .953, RMSEA = .040 (90% CI [.038, .043]). One to six models were examined: the model with smaller BIC and SSABIC, significant LMR-LRT, and highest entropy, compared to other models, was considered optimal. Once the optimal profile solution was chosen, demographic covariates were added into the model. Results: A four-profile solution was considered optimal. The profiles were labeled: (1) Low Family Functioning (n=210, 14.55%), (2) Low-to-Moderate Family Functioning (n=554, 38.39%), (3) Moderate-to-High Family Functioning (n=490, 33.96%), and (4) High Family Functioning (n=189, 13.10%). Wald tests of mean equality revealed significant differences between profiles. Profile membership was associated significantly with number of years in the United States, educational level, family income, and level of risk of the parent’s adolescent. For example, the longer the parents lived in the United States the more likely they were to belong to a lower family functioning profile, compared to a higher family functioning profile. Conclusions: The unidimensional profiles further supported the four constructs as representative of one family functioning construct. Results also suggested that Hispanic parents can be classified into distinct family functioning profiles that are ordinal in nature. Researchers working on Hispanic family-based, preventive interventions may utilize this information to better characterize participants and target intervention efforts (e.g., only select parents who are characterized by the lower family functioning profiles at baseline, compared to higher family functioning profiles, because they may be most in need of intervention).