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The Role of Life Stress and Social Support in the Adjustment of Sexually Victimized Pregnant and Parenting Minority Adolescents
Author(s) -
Osborne Lori N.,
Rhodes Jean E.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1012911431047
Subject(s) - psychology , social support , anxiety , clinical psychology , psychosocial , health psychology , depression (economics) , intervention (counseling) , developmental psychology , public health , psychiatry , medicine , psychotherapist , nursing , economics , macroeconomics
Associations among sexual victimization and the psychosocial functioning of African American and Latina pregnant and parenting adolescents were examined. Forty‐seven (17.7%) of the 265 participants reported histories of sexual victimization, most of which was unwanted sexual intercourse. The victimized adolescents reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and life stress and, although the two groups reported no differences in their levels of social support, support was found to be differentially related to depression and anxiety in the two groups. In particular, victims derived benefits from social support at low levels of stress, but social support provided no protection against depression and anxiety at average or high levels of stress. For nonvictims, social support provided no benefits at low levels of stress, but protected against depression and anxiety at moderate levels of stress and against depression at high levels of stress. Implications of these findings for research, theory, and intervention are discussed.