Featured Article: Interpersonal Stressors and Resources as Predictors of Adolescent Adjustment Following Traumatic Brain Injury

Publication Date

8-2018

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Adjustment, Adolescence, Closed head injury, Social support, Stress

Abstract

Objective

The present study sought to examine adolescents’ perceptions of their interpersonal stressors and resources across parent, sibling, friend, and school relationships, and the longitudinal associations with self-reported adjustment after traumatic brain injury (TBI) over a 12-month period.

Methods

We examined the main effects of stressors and resources on internalizing and externalizing symptoms in 152 adolescents who had sustained complicated mild-to-severe TBI. We also investigated the conjoint effects of stressors and resources and the moderating effects of TBI severity with stressors and resources on outcomes.

Results

High stressors consistently predicted worse adjustment. High resources were generally only associated with fewer internalizing symptoms. Main effects were qualified by interactions between school stressors and resources in predicting externalizing symptoms and between friend stressors and resources in predicting internalizing and externalizing symptoms. For school stressors, the effects of resources on externalizing symptoms functioned as a buffer. In comparison, the buffering effects of friend resources on internalizing and externalizing symptoms disappeared at moderate-to-high levels of friend stress. Moderating effects of TBI severity were also observed, such that as family resources increased, only adolescents with complicated mild-to-moderate TBI, but not those with severe TBI, experienced decreases in internalizing and eternalizing symptoms.

Conclusion

Interpersonal stressors and social support have important implications for adolescent adjustment after TBI. Adolescents with low levels of school resources, with high levels of friend stress, and who sustain severe TBI are at greatest risk for difficulties with adjustment.

Copyright Date

3-29-2018

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the authors. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Lantagne, A., Peterson, R. L., Kirkwood, M. W., Taylor, H. G., Stancin, T., Yeates, K. O., & Wade, S. L. (2018). Featured article: Interpersonal stressors and resources as predictors of adolescent adjustment following traumatic brain injury. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 43(7), 703-712. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsy020

Rights Holder

Ann Lantagne, Robin L. Peterson, Michael W. Kirkwood, H. Gerry Taylor, Terry Stancin, Keith Owen Yeates, and Shari L. Wade

Provenance

Received from CHORUS

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

10 pgs

File Size

271 KB

Publication Title

Journal of Pediatric Psychology

Volume

43

Issue

7

First Page

703

Last Page

712

ISSN

1465-735X

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