The Role of Parents' Depression and Parental Self-Efficacy in the Relationship between Economic Adjustment and Depression in Adolescents

Abstract

Based on the theoretical assumptions of Family Stress Model, the aim of the paper was to empirically examine whether the effect of family's economic adjustment on the severity of depression in adolescents is direct and/or indirect through depression of parents and parental self-efficacy. Data used in this paper were collected from adolescents (N=247) who live in twoparent families, and their parents within the project "Parents' work, family economic hardship and well-being of parents and children". Children rated their depression, and parents rated their depression and parental self-efficacy as well as an economic adjustment that family had to make. To examine the existence of a direct and indirect effect of family's economic adjustment on depression in adolescents, two serial mediation analyses (one on the sample of fathers and one on the sample of mothers) were performed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. The results of these analyses showed that difficult family's economic adjustment contributes to higher depression in adolescents directly and indirectly, through mothers' depression and low maternal self-efficacy. The indirect serial effect of family's economic adjustment on depression of adolescents through fathers' depression and parental self-efficacy, was not significant. The findings point to different processes by which economic adjustment affects parents and adolescents.