Do Acculturative Gap Conflicts Impact Parenting Practices and Youth E-Cigarette Use? Tests of Moderated Mediation.

BACKGROUND

Latino/a youth are at increased risk of electronic (e)-cigarette or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) use; thus, identifying factors impacting initiation is critical. Parenting practices reflecting warmth (e.g., relationship quality) and control (e.g., parental monitoring) and substance use-specific parenting (e.g., reactions to use, parenting self-efficacy) may influence youth substance use. For Latino/a youth, tensions from intergenerational acculturative differences are linked to substance use. We investigated ENDS use-specific parenting as a mediator between general parenting and youth ENDS use, examining whether acculturative gap conflict moderated the association between general and ENDS use-specific parenting. We expected mediation among families experiencing low acculturative gap conflicts.

METHOD

Data were analyzed over two waves from a predominantly White and Latino/a sample of caregiver-child dyads ( = 143) who identified with a culture in addition to or distinct from American. Youth ( = 14.9 years,  = 0.67; 62.9% female) reported relationship quality, parental monitoring, caregiver ENDS attitudes and reactions, acculturative gap conflicts, and ENDS use. Caregivers reported on ENDS use-specific parenting self-efficacy. Two moderated multiple mediator regression models (i.e., relationship quality, parental monitoring) were estimated.

RESULTS

Among youth reporting low and mean levels of acculturative gap conflict, ENDS use-specific parenting self-efficacy mediated the association between relationship quality and reduced ENDS use. There was no evidence for an interaction in the parental monitoring model.

CONCLUSIONS

In families experiencing low levels of acculturative gap conflict, relationship quality may impact ENDS use through caregivers' confidence in their ability to prevent child ENDS use.