Family and Friend Support as a Resource for Adopted and Non-adopted Adolescents. A Cross-country Latent Profile Analysis

Unlike most variable-oriented studies, this cross-sectional study used for the first time a person-oriented approach to examine how family and friend support relate to life satisfaction in adopted and non-adopted adolescents. Three hundred fiftyeight internationally adopted adolescents living in Italy, France, and Spain, matched one-to-one on age, gender, and country of residence with 358 non-adopted peers from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), filled in a self-report questionnaire. Three latent profiles emerged from a cross-country Latent Profile Analysis: fully integrated (77.2%; above-average to high levels of family and friend support), weakly supported (17.4%; low levels of support especially from family), and isolated (5.4%; extremely low level of family support and low level of friend support). After examining the cross-country invariance of the profiles, a multinomial logistic regression indicated that adoptees were more likely to belong to the high support profile, the one which also exhibited the highest levels of life satisfaction. The current person-oriented study showed that being supported by family and peers in adolescence represents a significant protective factor that goes beyond adoption status. These findings have practical implications for preventive family and social interventions aimed at favoring adolescents’ well-being.