Patterns of Self-Reported Alcohol Use, Depressive Symptoms, and Body Mass Index in a Family Sample: The Buffering Effects of Parentification

Abstract

Although the impact of parentification on children and adolescents’ psychological health and outcomes has long been studied and well documented, little is known about the impact of parentification on children and adolescents’ physical health and medical outcomes. Moreover, the potential buffering effects of parentification have been examined very rarely. The data in the current study were collected from an understudied, high-priority adolescent population ( N = 51 rural adolescent–parent dyads). The authors examined the bivariate relations between parent health (alcohol use, depressive symptoms, and body mass index [BMI]), adolescent health (alcohol use, depressive symptoms, and BMI), and parentification. The effect size of the significant bivariate correlations ranged from small to large ( r = .29 to r = .62). Parentification was positively associated with parent BMI and adolescent depressive symptoms. Parent alcohol use was strongly associated with adolescent alcohol use. Regression analyses were performed to determine if parentification moderates the relation between parental health and adolescent health. Parentification was found to function as a buffer of the relation between parent alcohol use and adolescent alcohol use. Parentification did not function as a moderator of the relation between parent depressive symptoms and adolescent depressive symptoms nor in the relationship between parent BMI and adolescent BMI. However, parentification did moderate the association between parent alcohol use and adolescent depressive symptoms.