Psychological symptoms among adolescents: Latent class analysis of parental attitudes, psychological needs, self-regulation, and alexithymia

Psychological problems are prevalent among adolescents, and previous studies have robustly demonstrated that individual and family factors play a role in the formation and maintenance of these problems. On the other hand, not all adolescents show the same characteristics in terms of these factors and can be categorized into different groups. Identifying this heterogeneity is also important in intervention for psychological problems. Thus, this study aimed to identify patterns of parental attitudes, basic psychological needs, self-regulation, and alexithymia, using latent class analysis (LCA), and investigated how different patterns of these individual and family factors are associated with psychological problems. Participants included a sample of 331 volunteer Turkish adolescents (140 male [42.3%], 191 female [57.7%]). LCA indicated a two-class solution fit the current data well and 65% of the participants were classified into the first latent class which was labeled as “positive individual and family context” (PIFC). The PIFC were found to have higher levels of parental sensitivity and autonomy support, need satisfaction and self-regulation, but lower levels of mother's psychological and behavioral control and father's behavioral control, need frustration, and alexithymia. The second latent class, labeled as “negative individual and family context” (NIFC), included 35% of the adolescents. Adolescents in NIFC had low levels of parental sensitivity, autonomy support, satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and self-regulation, but high levels of mother's psychological and behavioral control, father's behavioral control, frustration of basic psychological needs, and alexithymia. Moreover, after controlling gender and age, adolescents classified in the NIFC displayed significantly higher levels of psychological problems than those classified in the PIFC. These findings support the idea that individual and familial factors interact to affect adolescents' mental health and suggest that clinicians and helping professionals would benefit from including these factors in intervention processes. © 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.