This dissertation is the study of a sample of mostly Latina and African-American single-parent mothers living with AIDS (n=13) in N.Y.C. and their adolescent children. The candidate will describe background variables of both mothers and youth (age, ethnicity, family size, and genger of youth), psychosocial factors of mothers (health, access to social resources, perception of community quality, and number of HIV-postive frends and family members) and youth (mental health, parental status, and the availability of their fathers), and substance use histories of both mother and youth. The dissertation will then examine predictors of the level of family role tasks (in relation to their mother, to their siblings, and generalized household tasks) assigned tothe adolescents in the families. Finally, this study will examine the association between the level of family role tasks assigned to adolescent with their mental health, with legal custody plans made by the mothers, and with the mothers' intention to designate that adolescent child as the guardian of her younger siblings-- controlling for background and mediating variables. This study was employed as part of a larger project: Project TALK. Project TALK is a joint program of the UCLA Division of Social and Community Psychiatry and the Family Center in New Uork City. Project TALK is an intervention research project testing the efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for mothers living with AIDS and their adolescent children, to reduce the negative outcomes for the youth. The primary outcomes of the study are the adolescents' mental health (psychiatric distress, particularly depression and suicide; self-esteem), behaviors (HIV sexual and substance use risk acts, trouble at school and with the criminal justice system, and conduct problems), and social adjustment (relationships with the new guardian, peers, and family). Subjects were recruited and a baseline assessment interview was administered within a week after admittance to the project. Post-intervention follow-up interviews are to be administered at eight points in time, two during the intervention and six post-intervention. This study examines preintervention baseline data only, that was included in the assessment for the purposes of the dissertation described herein.
