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Panel information
Panel 6. Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

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Introduction: It has been well established that youth involved in the child welfare system experience high rates of childhood adversity, and, in turn, are at increased risk for psychological maladjustment. Prior studies have categorized the patterns of exposure to childhood adversity (e.g., Brown et al., 2019); however, there has been limited research that has examined patterns of co-occurring psychological symptoms in this population. The current study builds on previous research by exploring how classes of childhood adversity are associated with profiles of psychological symptoms among adolescents involved in the U.S. child welfare system.

Methods: This study uses data from the third cohort of the National Survey on Child and Adolescent Wellbeing (NSCAW), a nationally representative survey of youth in the U.S. child welfare system. The analytic sample included 1,043 youth ages 11-17 years (M = 14.24 years; 47.7% assigned female at birth; 53.5% youth from minoritized racial/ethnic backgrounds). Latent class and latent profile analyses were conducted to identify childhood adversity and psychological symptom subgroups, respectively. Cross-sectional latent transition analysis (i.e., a joint LTA model) using three-step specification was conducted to explore the probability that an individual within a specific childhood adversity class simultaneously belonged to a specific psychological symptom subgroup, adjusting for covariates. I used standard fit criteria to identify the final models.

Results: Three subgroups of childhood adversity were identified: high direct threat and physical neglect (33.16%; n = 346.19), high direct threat only (49.07%; n = 512.24), and low endorsement (17.78%; n = 185.57), and two subgroups of psychological symptoms were identified: non-clinical symptoms (71.68%; n = 748.38) and clinical internalizing and other problems, borderline clinical externalizing problems (28.32%; n = 295.62). The latent transition analysis found that youth who were in the low endorsement of childhood adversity subgroup had high probabilities of also being in the non-clinical subgroup (0.99). Youth who were in the high direct threat and physical neglect (0.35) and high direct threat only classes (0.34) had moderate probabilities of being in the clinical subgroup. Older youth were more likely to be in the clinical subgroup, whereas youth who participated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to be in the non-clinical subgroup. Sex assigned at birth, placement in out-of-home care, and race/ethnicity were not significantly associated with subgroup membership.

Discussion: Generally, the majority of youth were in the non-clinical symptom subgroup. Youth with exposure to direct threat and physical neglect and direct threat only had some probability of jointly experiencing clinical-level psychological symptoms. These results highlight the importance of considering the dimensional nature of childhood adversity and psychological symptoms to better understand what types of adversity are more likely to be associated with psychological maladjustment. Further, our findings emphasize the importance of prevention efforts to reduce violence exposure. Future research in this area could identify protective factors that help to buffer the effects of childhood adversity on psychological adjustment for youth involved in the child welfare system.

Author information

Author	Role
Camie Tomlinson, University of Louisville	Presenting author
Jennifer Tinman, University of Louisville	Non-presenting author

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