A Summary of Research on Family Relationships and Mental Health

This report summarizes a research article that examines the pathways from problematic adolescent family relationships to midlife mental health issues, mediated by disadvantages experienced in early adulthood. The study, which did not identify a specific theoretical perspective, aimed to determine the relationship between teenage family associations and psychological distress in midlife. Data was collected using questionnaires administered to Finnish-speaking 9th-grade students and secondary analysis of existing survey data. The analysis involved descriptive statistics, frequencies, standard deviations, and structural equation modeling using IBM SPSS Statistics 22 and MPlus 7. Findings indicated that problematic family associations are linked to mental health at midlife through complex networks of disadvantages, with heavy drinking and lack of family support exacerbating these pathways to adulthood.

Running head: FAMILY 1
Family
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

FAMILY 2
Berg, N., Kiviruusu, O., Karvonen, S., Rahkonen, O., & Huurre, T. (2017). Pathways from
Problems in Adolescent Family Relationships to Midlife Mental Health via Early
Adulthood Disadvantages–A 26-Year Longitudinal Study. PloS one, 12(5), e0178136.
Theoretical Orientation and Purpose
The researcher did not identify any theoretical perspective. The main aim of the study
was to examine the pathways based on the poor family relationships especially in the teenage
years to midlife mental distress through the disadvantages experienced in early adulthood. The
article attempted to find out the relationship between the family associations among teenagers
and the psychological distress faced at midlife. Further, the study aims to explore the function of
different disadvantages that are experienced in various perspectives of life among individuals at
early adulthood who were seen as mediators of the prevailing relationships.
Methods
Questionnaires were administered to the students during the school hours as the
qualitative methods of data collection. Further, a secondary analysis was also used that involved
analyzing information that was collected from other studies where surveys were administered at
the beginning of the 1980s.
Sample
The sample involved the Finnish-speaking 9th-grade students who attended an all-
inclusive learning institution in Tampere and a city university that comprised 166,000
inhabitants. In the first questionnaire, 2, 194 students within the age of 15.92 were involved. On
the other hand, the postal questionnaires were issued to participants within the age of 22, 32, and
42 years. However, only the individuals at 42 years were involved in data analysis.
Data Analysis

FAMILY 3
Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22 and MPlus 7 (Berg et al.,
2017). Moreover, descriptive means, statistics, frequencies, and standard deviations of the
variables were accounted for in the analysis. A model for structural equation and multigroup
options were used in the analysis thus no qualitative and quantitative techniques were applied.
Findings
The connections between various disadvantages demonstrate that the pathways from
problematic family associations were seen as complex networks endowed with disadvantages in
the entire course of life. Notably, family associations can be related to individual mental health at
midlife. This is because mental health plays a significant role in steering the relationships. Heavy
drinking causes the problematic relationships in case the family does not support the adolescents
thus the pathways to adulthood are compromised.