Social Support, Depression, and Anxiety in Female Adolescents: Associations and Profiles

• Published in: Child & youth care forum Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 85 - 109
• Main Authors: Kelly, Kathleen M., Malecki, Christine K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-02-2022; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent girls; Adolescents; Anxiety; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Child and School Psychology; Depression (Psychology); Females; High School Students; Individual Characteristics; Internalization; Mental depression; Networks; Original Paper; Parent Child Relationship; Parent Influence; Predictor Variables; Psychology; Secondary schools; Siblings; Social anxiety; Social support; Social Support Groups; Teenagers; Latent profile analysis; Internalizing; Adolescents; Social support
• ISSN: 1053-1890; 1573-3319
• DOI: 10.1007/s10566-021-09617-1

Background
Robust research indicates that social support is negatively associated with depression and anxiety. Less work has investigated social support as a network of support across sources like parents and classmates. Past work suggests that sources of support have differential associations with internalizing outcomes. More work exploring the differential associations between each source along with the cumulative network of social support and internalizing symptoms is warranted.
Objectives
In a sample of female adolescents, the current study explored (1) what patterns of social support across sources emerged, and (2) how do depressive and anxiety symptoms vary based on those social support patterns?.
Method
The study utilized Latent Profile Analysis on a sample of female adolescents from four different high schools (
N
 = 143) to identify patterns of social support across sources.
Results
Parent support emerged as a unique, individual predictor of depressive symptoms. Five unique profiles of social support emerged. Profile membership was associated with reports of depression but not with reports of anxiety. Reports of depression differed by profile such that profiles with moderate support from most sources and low support from siblings had the highest levels of depressive symptoms.
Conclusions
Social support is associated with symptoms of depression in female adolescents. The study highlights the importance of parent–child relationships for female adolescents and suggests that additional work on sibling support is warranted. The study promotes that the network of social support is an important factor to consider when researching associations between social support and internalizing outcomes.