Exploring dimensions of childhood adversity as predictors of psychological adjustment among adolescents involved in the child welfare system: A latent profile analysis

Abstract

Child welfare-involved youth experience elevated rates of psychological maladjustment. Few studies have examined whether there are latent subgroups of youth who experience similar patterns of psychological adjustment. Toadvance understanding of the promotion of adjustment among this marginalized population, the current study addressed this gap by conducting a latent profile analysis of psychological symptoms. Once the identified latent profiles were identified, we examined relations between sociodemographic characteristics and adversity experiences among a nationally representative sample of 1,048 child welfare-involved adolescents (11–17 years). We used a 3-step approach to examine whether dimensions of adversity predict profile membership. We identified two distinct subgroups: “comorbid internalizing and externalizing symptoms” (18%) and “non-clinical symptoms” (82%). The comorbid subgroup was characterized by scores within the clinically significant or borderline range for all indicators. Results of the logistic regression suggested that for every additional threat adversity experienced (e.g., exposure to violence, such as physical abuse), youth were 1.7 times more likely to be in the comorbid subgroup than the non-clinical subgroup. However, deprivation (e.g., unfulfilled physical, emotional, or social needs, such as physical neglect) was not a significant predictor of profile membership. Our findings highlight the importance of preventing exposure to threat-related adversity and building our understanding of psychological adjustment among child welfare-involved adolescents to promote positive psychological outcomes in this population.