Parent-Child Separation and Diurnal Cortisol Rhythms Among Left-Behind Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Sex.

Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 0333507 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-6601 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00472891 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Youth Adolesc Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 1999- : New York, NY : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
Original Publication: New York, Plenum Press.

Hydrocortisone* ; Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System*/physiology; Male ; Female ; Humans ; Adolescent ; Child ; Divorce ; Pituitary-Adrenal System/physiology ; Saliva ; Parent-Child Relations ; Stress, Psychological

Prior research examining parent-child separation and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning has primarily focused on separation due to parental divorce or loss or forced migration. Less clear is the impact of parental economic migration on adolescents' HPA axis functioning. The present study fills this gap by examining diurnal cortisol patterns among left-behind adolescents who experienced separation from their migrant parents. Participants were 293 Chinese adolescents (33.4% girls, 66.21% left-behind adolescents; M age  = 10.80 years old, SD = 0.82 years). Two-level multilevel modeling was conducted to examine the associations between parent-child separation experiences and diurnal cortisol patterns. Although no significant differences were found between left-behind adolescents and their non-left-behind peers, results revealed that left-behind adolescents who experienced parent-child separation at earlier ages had more blunted diurnal cortisol slopes (usually signaling poorer mental and physical health), compared to their counterparts who experienced separation at older ages. Left-behind adolescent girls who had more adverse separation experiences exhibited smaller waking cortisol and blunted diurnal slopes; these findings were not observed among left-behind adolescent boys. Observing the association between timing of parent-child separation and adolescents' diurnal cortisol and the moderating effects of child sex, this study contributes uniquely to the developmental science of left-behind adolescents' physiological health.
(© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

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32071076 the National Natural Science Foundation of China; 2021M700484 China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

Keywords: Adolescents; Diurnal cortisol rhythm; Left-behind children; Parent-child separation; The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis

WI4X0X7BPJ (Hydrocortisone)

Date Created: 20230722 Date Completed: 20230728 Latest Revision: 20230728

20231215

10.1007/s10964-023-01820-8

37481502