Discrimination-related stress effects on the development of internalizing symptoms among Latino adolescents.

This three-wave longitudinal study of 173 Latino adolescents (M = 16.16 years, SD = 0.65) is designed to understand the role of discrimination-related stress in mental health trajectories during middle to late adolescence with attention to differences due to immigration status. The results of the growth curve analysis showed that anxious-depressed, withdrawn-depressed, and somatic complaints significantly decreased over time. Furthermore, although discrimination-related stress was found to be significantly related to the trajectories of three types of mental health symptoms, the results revealed that immigration status moderated these relations such that discrimination-related stress was significantly related to these outcomes for Latino youth whose parents were born in the United States, while this relation was not significant for Latino children of immigrants.