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Parents of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are often reported as experiencing more stress than parents of normal children. The bulk of this research has been conducted primarily on a Caucasian population, however, providing little information regarding multicultural aspects of parenting stress. Research has also been lacking in attention given to the stress related to parenting a child with internalizing disorders. The purpose of this study was 1) to compare parenting stress reported by mothers of children with ADHD to parenting stress reported by mothers of children with depressive disorders, and 2) to compare parenting stress as reported by Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic mothers. Results indicated that mothers of ADHD children experienced more parenting stress related only to their children's hyperactive and distracting behaviors. Contrary to previous research, Caucasian mothers reported significantly more overall and parent-related parenting stress than African American mothers.

This study uses an integration of ethnographic and case-study qualitative analysis to help explain early adolescent and caregiver perspectives of an increased prevalence of depression in Mexican American girls. This phenomenon has been replicated in numerous other studies and it is important to obtain more information to inform understanding, enhance treatment, and initiate intervention and prevention strategies. The combination of these methods of qualitative inquiry allowed for the triangulation of multiple pieces of data including participant observation, interviewing, and archival research. Retrospective child and caregiver verbal accounts were compared with one another as well as with prior assessment of functioning and participant observation. Fourteen Mexican American or bi-ethnic early adolescents and one of their caregivers were interviewed using an unstructured interview process. Transcribed interviews were analyzed qualitatively. Findings suggest that both girls and caregivers focus on the contribution of negative life events, interpersonal relationship stress, personal characteristics, gender discrimination, and biology on the increased prevalence of depression. It is noteworthy that each of these factors is strongly correlated with the family socio-cultural environment. This study concludes with a proposal to integrate the work of Zayas, Lester, Cabassa, and Fortuna (2005) regarding Latina suicide attempts and the work of Hyde, Mezulis, and Abramson (2008) regarding the increase in girls’ rates of depression during early adolescence to explain the increased prevalence of depression in Mexican American girls yielding additional affective, biological, and cognitive vulnerabilities as well as particular negative life events. / text