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Social Support, Traumatic Events, and Depressive Symptoms Among African Americans
Author(s) -
Lincoln Karen D,
Chatters Linda M,
Taylor Robert Joseph
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00167.x
Subject(s) - social support , mental health , structural equation modeling , psychology , comorbidity , affect (linguistics) , clinical psychology , depressive symptoms , social stress , traumatic stress , general strain theory , depression (economics) , psychiatry , anxiety , social psychology , juvenile delinquency , statistics , mathematics , communication , economics , macroeconomics
Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among stress, social support, negative interaction, and mental health in a sample of African American men and women between ages 18 and 54 (N= 591) from the National Comorbidity Study. The study findings indicated that social support decreased the number of depressive symptoms, did not mitigate the effects of stress, and was reduced in response to financial strain. Financial strain and traumatic events were associated with increased negative interaction with relatives and depressive symptoms. The findings verify that stressful and traumatic events have direct influences on levels of depressive symptoms and affect the quality of social interactions and suggest how social interaction processes contribute to mental health.