Poster Session 1: Military Family Life and Well-Being

Presenters: Davina Quichocho, Mallory Lucier-Greer

Summary
Within Structural Family Theory, families have roles and rules that govern how the family functions, including how members act and interact. In a sample of 228 military families, it is examined if family functioning characteristics (e.g., cohesion and flexibility) may be linked to who adolescents confide in when distressed (i.e., fathers, mothers, siblings), which in turn may be linked to their mental health outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, wellbeing, self-efficacy). Examining the role of family members as internal social support is especially needed for military families, as they are often disconnected from extended support systems as their context is constantly being transformed by military transitions. Results showed highly nuanced outcomes for adolescents depending upon both family functioning and the family member being confided in.

Objectives
-- Expand on existing research by examining how family functioning is linked to adolescent outcomes, and the role of confiding in certain family members in this relationship, specifically in a military sample population.
-- Utilize tenets of Structural Family Theory to understand family functioning, confiding behaviors in the context of distress, and outcomes for adolescents in military families
-- Explore the implications of how family roles may create nuance in both how adolescents enact confiding behaviors and how adolescent outcomes manifest in military families

Subject Codes: family functioning, mental health, communication
Population Codes: military family, adolescence, marriage and family therapists/clinicians
Method and Approach Codes: structural equation modeling (SEM), mediation/indirect effects models, path analysis