Measures of psychosocial adjustment were made through an epidemiological survey on 56 teenagers of a popular neighborhood of Salvador to evaluate the predictive power of environmental and socioeconomic variables, evaluated when those subjects had between 0 and 5 years. Variables concerning to three different moments in the course of life of the family were considered. The quality of the stimulation in the early family environment (scores at HOME Inventory) revealed more important than parental psychopathology in the analysis of differences among medium scores for problems (QMPI) and competencies (ACQ - Achenbach, Quay & Conners' Checklist). The only factor of the HOME Inventory correlated to the score in QMPI was "punishing and restriction" (p<0,05). In general, high scores at HOME Inventory were associated to higher indexes of adjustment; however, some factors that indicate adversity in the first years predicted higher levels of competence, getting the attention for the complexity inherent to determination of vulnerability-resilience in developmental processes.
Family; mental health; early experience; life events
