Individual and Family Factors Related to Psychosocial Adjustment in Stepmother Families With Adolescents

Abstract

This article presents additional data analyses from an earlier study on risk and resilience factors linked with adjustment in stepfamilies with adolescents. The primary objective addressed how individual and family-level factors impacted adjustment in a sample composed of 3 members (biological father, stepmother, and adolescent) from a subsample of 39 stepmother families. Multiple regression results showed that each stepmother family member's adjustment is affected by both shared and nonshared processes. Results also highlighted the role of triangulations and role ambiguity in the psychosocial adjustment of stepmother family members.

This study was approved by the Ethics Bureau of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Université de Montréal, and was supported financially by graduate scholarships from the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, and the Conseil de Développement de la Recherche sur la Famille du Québec. The author wishes to thank the participants for their interest and collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• parent–adolescent relations
• stepfamily communication
• stepfamily coping
• stepmother families
• stepparent–stepchild relations

Notes

This study was approved by the Ethics Bureau of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Université de Montréal, and was supported financially by graduate scholarships from the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, and the Conseil de Développement de la Recherche sur la Famille du Québec. The author wishes to thank the participants for their interest and collaboration.