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. 2024 Sep;58(9):800-808.
doi: 10.1177/00048674241246441. Epub 2024 Apr 20.

Exploring the association of Indigeneity, social adversity status and externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents

Alasdair Vance  1   2 , Janet McGaw  3 , Angel O'Meara  2 , Joseph P Gone  4 , Sandra Eades  5
Affiliations

Exploring the association of Indigeneity, social adversity status and externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents

Alasdair Vance et al. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2024 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: The relationship between Indigeneity, social adversity status and externalizing symptoms is complex and unclear. This study investigates how Indigeneity, social adversity status and externalizing symptoms are related in young people.

Methods: A total of 132 Indigenous and 247 non-Indigenous young people aged 6-16 years were recruited from a hospital mental health outpatient service. Normality plots with statistics for social adversity status and parent-reported externalizing symptoms were completed for the two groups, matched for age, gender, mental disorder symptom severity, symptom-linked distress and impairment. Standard multiple regression was used to examine how Indigeneity moderates the relationship between social adversity status and parent-reported externalizing symptoms. A scatterplot investigated the association between Indigeneity and social adversity status in young people with parent-reported externalizing symptoms.

Results: The distributions of the two groups and (1) social adversity status and (2) parent -reported externalizing symptoms were non-normal but acceptable for a moderator analysis. Indigeneity and social adversity status made independent significant positive contributions to externalizing symptoms. In contrast the interaction between Indigeneity and social adversity status made a nonsignificant negative trend to externalizing symptoms. A scatterplot revealed Indigeneity moderated the link between social adversity status and externalizing symptoms.

Conclusions: High social adversity status is linked to externalizing symptoms in non-Indigenous young people but despite higher social adversity, Indigenous young people don't necessarily externalize. Potential protective resilience factors for externalizing symptoms in the Indigenous young people need to be ascertained and nurtured. Future systematic investigations of the contribution of these protective factors to Indigenous referral pathways and management are needed. It is also crucial that increased social adversity status is addressed and managed in all young people, regardless of Indigeneity.

Keywords: Australian Indigenous children and adolescents; externalizing symptoms; social adversity status.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Boxplot of social adversity status (raw score) for Indigenous (yes) and non-Indigenous (no) participants.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Boxplot of parent-reported externalizing symptoms (T score) for Indigenous (yes) and non-Indigenous (no) participants.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Scatterplot of social adversity status (z score) and parent-reported externalizing symptoms (z score) with linear regression lines for Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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