Date of Award

2013-01-01

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Clinical Psychology

Advisor(s)

Felipe G. Castro

Abstract

Background: The focus of this study was factors that affect resilience as a health outcome among Hispanic adults. Some Hispanics and other members of disadvantaged and vulnerable populations have developed remarkable ways of coping with adversity, such as positive reframing (Farley, Galves, Dickinson, & Perez, 2005). Purpose: This research aimed to examine various ways of coping in response to difficult life situations for Hispanic adults and identify those that are associated with resilient outcomes. Methods: The present sub-study focused on difficult life problem narratives from the semi-structured interviews conducted in Dr. Felipe González Castro's Corazón projects (Castro, Kellison, Boyd & Kopak, 2010). These projects were designed to examine how the life events from late adolescence to early adulthood can affect four adult-stage health-related outcomes: (a) Resilience, (b) Health Motivation, (c) Depression, and (d) Life Satisfaction, for a diverse sample of (N=104) adult Hispanics. The selected and theoretically-based quantitative predictors from late adolescence/early adulthood were: (a) family stressors, (b) willingness for the "Big Move" and (c) "Big Move" stressors. Predictors from current adulthood were: (a) family stressors, and (b) self-rated problem severity. Hierarchical regression models were conducted that utilized these quantitative and qualitatively derived variables. Results: For the main analyses (N=104), significant non-control variables that operated as predictors of the outcome variable were: avoidant coping behavior (β= -.181, p < .05) for Resilience, and "Big Move" (leaving the family home during late adolescence) willingness (to leave the home at late adolescence) (β = .227, p < .05) for Health Motivation. Only control variables were found to be significant predictors for Depression and for Life Satisfaction. Planned sub-analyses were also conducted to examine a set of variables of interest that were only available for a subset of this sample of 104 cases due to a change in project protocol during data collection which was not included for the drug user project. For this set of (N=65), significant non-control variables were: high school family stress as a predictor of both Resilience (β=.287, p < .05) and separately for Life Satisfaction (β=.266, p < .05), and current adulthood family stress (β=.393, p < .01) for Depression. Conclusion: Avoidant coping behavior was a strong negative predictor of adulthood resilience, whereas Acceptance & Commitment and Worthlessness did not show significant associations with resilience. This significant result suggests that people who use avoidant ways of coping exhibit low levels of resilience, perhaps because they do not struggle with a stressor in ways that can aid in finding solutions, and in also developing resilience, the capacity to recover from adversity. Types of family stress experienced in early adulthood seem to influence resilience, life satisfaction, and depression by way of stress experienced and motivation to leave the family home.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

65 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Katherine Marie Aguirre

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS