Gender differences in the longitudinal structure of cognitive diatheses for depression in children and adolescents

Disentangling trait, occasion-specific, and accumulated situational effects of psychological distress in adulthood: evidence from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts

BACKGROUND

The trajectories of psychological distress differ between individuals, but these differences can be difficult to understand because the measures contain both consistent and situational features; however, in longitudinal studies these sources of information can be disentangled. In addition to occasion-specific features, interindividual differences can be decomposed into two sources of information: trait and carry-over effects between neighboring occasions that are not related to the trait (i.e. accumulated situational effects).

METHODS

To disentangle these three sources of variance throughout adulthood, the consistency (trait and accumulated situational effects) and occasion specificity of nine indicators of psychological distress from the Malaise Inventory were examined in two birth cohorts, the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS58), and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70).

RESULTS

The scale was administered at ages 23, 33, 42, and 50 in NCDS58 (n = 7147), and at ages 26, 30, 34, and 42 in BCS70 (n = 6859). For each psychological symptom, more variance was consistent than occasion-specific. The majority of the consistency was due to trait variance as opposed to accumulated situational effects, indicating that an individual predisposed to be distressed at the beginning of the study remained more likely to be distressed over the whole period. Symptoms of rage were notably more consistent among males than females in both cohorts (78.1% and 81.3% variance explained by trait in NCDS58 and BCS70, respectively), and among females in the NCDS58 (69%).

CONCLUSIONS

Symptoms of psychological distress exhibited high stability throughout adulthood, especially among men, due mostly to interindividual trait differences.

Time-varying and time-invariant dimensions of depression in children and adolescents: Implications for cross-informant agreement

The longitudinal structure of depression in children and adolescents was examined by applying a Trait-State-Occasion structural equation model to 4 waves of self, teacher, peer, and parent reports in 2 age groups (9 to 13 and 13 to 16 years old). Analyses revealed that the depression latent variable consisted of 2 longitudinal factors: a time-invariant dimension that was completely stable over time and a time-varying dimension that was not perfectly stable over time. Different sources of information were differentially sensitive to these 2 dimensions. Among adolescents, self- and parent reports better reflected the time-invariant aspects. For children and adolescents, peer and teacher reports better reflected the time-varying aspects. Relatively high cross-informant agreement emerged for the time-invariant dimension in both children and adolescents. Cross-informant agreement for the time-varying dimension was high for adolescents but very low for children. Implications emerge for theoretical models of depression and for its measurement, especially when attempting to predict changes in depression in the context of longitudinal studies. (PsycINFO Database Record

Attentional bias to threat in children at-risk for emotional disorders: role of gender and type of maternal emotional disorder

Previous studies suggested that threat biases underlie familial risk for emotional disorders in children. However, major questions remain concerning the moderating role of the offspring gender and the type of parental emotional disorder on this association. This study addresses these questions in a large sample of boys and girls. Participants were 6-12 years old (at screening) typically developing children participating in the High Risk Cohort Study for Psychiatric Disorders (n = 1280; 606 girls, 674 boys). Children were stratified according to maternal emotional disorder (none; mood disorder; anxiety disorder; comorbid anxiety/mood disorder) and gender. Attention biases were assessed using a dot-probe paradigm with threat, happy and neutral faces. A significant gender-by-parental emotional disorder interaction predicted threat bias, independent of anxiety and depression symptoms in children. Daughters of mothers with an emotional disorder showed increased attention to threat compared with daughters of disorder-free mothers, irrespective of the type of maternal emotion disorder. In contrast, attention bias to threat in boys only occurred in mothers with a non-comorbid mood disorder. No group differences were found for biases for happy-face cues. Gender and type of maternal emotional disorder predict attention bias in disorder-free children. This highlights the need for longitudinal research to clarify whether this pattern of threat-attention bias in children relates to the risk of developing anxiety and mood disorders later in life.

Depression risk and electrocortical reactivity during self-referential emotional processing in 8 to 14 year-old girls

Cognitive vulnerabilities, such as a negative self-referential processing bias, have been theorized to play a causal role in the development of depression. Indeed, depression is associated with the endorsement and recall of more negative and fewer positive emotional words (i.e., recall biases) in the self-referential encoding task (SRET). In addition, currently depressed adults and adolescents, compared to healthy controls, show an enhanced late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects sustained attentional engagement, during the processing of negative relative to positive words in the SRET. However, it is unclear whether these behavioral and neural measures in the SRET are indicators of risk for depression, or are concomitants of the disorder. The present study included 121 8 to 14 year-old girls with no lifetime history of depression, and examined the association between maternal history of depression (i.e., risk) and both behavioral and ERP measures while viewing positive and negative adjectives during the SRET. Lifetime history of major depressive disorder and/or dysthymia in the biological mother was assessed via a semistructured diagnostic interview. Results indicated that participants with maternal history of depression, compared with those with no maternal history of depression, demonstrated an enhanced LPP to negative words. There were no group differences in the LPP to positive words. Maternal history of depression was also related to faster response time when rejecting negative words. Participant's current depression symptoms were associated with increased negative recall bias and decreased positive recall bias. The present study provides novel evidence that abnormal electrocortical reactivity to negative self-referential words indexes vulnerability for depression in 8 to 14 year-old girls. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dimensions of Peer Sexual Harassment Victimization and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Cross-Lagged Study in a Swedish Sample

Sexual harassment is commonly considered unwanted sexual attention and a form of gender-based violence that can take physical, verbal and visual forms and it is assumed to cause later depression in adolescents. There is a dearth of research explicitly testing this assumption and the directional pathway remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to use a feminist theoretical framework to test competing models in respect of the direction of the relationships between dimensions of peer sexual harassment victimization and dimensions of depressive symptoms from ages 14 to 16 in adolescents. The study also aimed to investigate gender differences in these pathways. Cross-lagged models were conducted using a three-wave (2010, 2011 and 2012) longitudinal study of 2330 students (51 % females) from Sweden, adjusted for social background. Girls subjected to sexual harassment in grade seven continued to experience sexual harassment the following 2 years. There was weaker evidence of repeated experience of sexual harassment among boys. Depressive symptoms were stable over time in both genders. Sexual name-calling was the dimension that had the strongest associations to all dimensions of depressive symptoms irrespective of gender. In girls, name-calling was associated with later somatic symptoms and negative affect, while anhedonia (reduced ability to experience pleasure) preceded later name-calling. Physical sexual harassment had a reciprocal relationship to somatic symptoms in girls. In boys, name-calling was preceded by all dimensions of depressive symptoms. It is an urgent matter to prevent sexual harassment victimization, as it is most likely to both cause depressive symptoms or a reciprocal cycle of victimization and depression symptoms in girls as well as boys.

Chronic environmental stress and the temporal course of depression and panic disorder: A trait-state-occasion modeling approach

Both acute stressful life events and ongoing strains are thought to confer vulnerability to emotional disorders. Unremitting stressful conditions may be particularly pathogenic, but prior research has struggled to delimit chronic versus transient stressful experiences. We aimed to isolate stable stressors-theorized to be indicators of a latent stress proneness trait-and to examine their effects on the temporal course of depression and panic disorder. We recruited 677 patients diagnosed with an emotional disorder and administered interviews for psychopathology and life stress 3 times over 12-month intervals. Trait-state-occasion modeling revealed that 74% of the variance in life stress was stable over the follow-up period. These stable stressors were associated with a more refractory course of depression and, to a smaller degree, panic disorder over time. In addition, neither gender nor participation in cognitive-behavioral therapy affected the persistence of environmental stress over the study time frame. We discuss implications of these findings for explaining depression recurrence, improving psychological interventions for emotional disorders, and the measurement and evaluation of stress proneness.

Racial microstressors, racial self-concept, and depressive symptoms among male African Americans during the transition to adulthood

Racial discrimination is a pervasive stressor that can undermine mental health among African American youth and young adults. Several studies identify links between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms; however, this research base does not focus on male African American youth who experience significant racism-related stress during the transition to young adulthood. Moreover, few prospective studies consider significant confounding variables that affect exposure to and perception of discriminatory treatment. In response to this need, we examined the effect of exposure to racial discrimination from ages 16 to 18 on depressive symptoms among male African Americans at age 20. Racial self-concept, one's sense of positivity about one's race, was examined as a mediator and self-control as a moderator. Hypotheses were tested with 222 participants, age 16 at baseline and age 20 at the endpoint. Participants provided self-report data at five time points. Exposure to racial discrimination from ages 16 to 18 predicted depressive symptoms at age 20, net of confounding influences. Racial self-concept mediated this effect. Self-control moderated the influence of discrimination on racial self-concept. This study underscores the salience of racial discrimination in the development of depressive symptoms among African American male youth and the clinical utility of interventions targeting racial pride and self-control.

Cognitive vulnerability to depression during middle childhood: Stability and associations with maternal affective styles and parental depression

Theories of cognitive vulnerability to depression (CVD) imply that CVD is early-emerging and trait-like; however, little longitudinal work has tested this premise in middle childhood, or examined theoretically relevant predictors of child CVD. We examined test-retest correlations of self-referent encoding task performance and self-reported attributional styles and their associations with parental characteristics in 205 seven-year-olds. At baseline, child CVD was assessed, structured clinical interviews were conducted with parents, and ratings of observed maternal affective styles were made. Children's CVD was re-assessed approximately one and two years later. Both measures of children's CVD were prospectively and concurrently associated with children's depressive symptoms and showed modest stability. Multilevel modeling indicated that maternal criticism and paternal depression were related to children's CVD. Findings indicate that even early-emerging CVD is a valid marker of children's depression risk.

Effects of a school-based intervention program for middle school adolescent girls with depression: as part of the school health services

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a school-based intervention program for middle school adolescent girls with depression.

METHODS

The study was a pretest-posttest repeated-measure design with a nonequivalent control group. Fifty eight students with depressive symptoms were recruited from two middle schools in Seoul, Korea. The data were collected from the intervention (n=30) and the comparison group (n=28). The research instrument was Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale.

RESULTS

The intervention group greatly improved from baseline to 10 weeks and then saw a slight positive change between 10 and 13 weeks.

CONCLUSION

The results of this research show that depression intervention programs are effective for young female adolescents. Thus the investigation has important school-based treatment implications, and should be integrated into school curricula by school health nurses for early intervention of depressive symptoms in middle school adolescent girls.

[Cognitive behavior therapy for depression in children and adolescents - procedure, effects, and developments]

Cognitive behavior therapy offers a theoretically and empirically valid therapeutic approach for children and adolescents suffering from depression. It can be recommended according to present guidelines and efficacy studies. Further research and conceptual development, however, is necessary especially regarding the small to moderate effect sizes as well as the lack of long-term efficacy and effect factors. This article gives a short overview of the basics and contents of cognitive behavior therapy for depressive children and adolescents. It furthermore presents the latest findings and an assessment of its efficacy and relevant developments and perspectives.

Gender Differences in Cognitive Schema Vulnerability and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

This study aims to investigate whether gender differences in the prevalence of depressive symptoms, with girls reporting more depressive symptoms than boys, are related to gender differences in cognitive schema vulnerability. A cross-sectional study investigating adolescents from both clinical (N = 110) and non-clinical samples (N = 118) was conducted, using the Young Schema Questionnaire — Short Form (YSQ-SF) as a measure of cognitive schema vulnerability. Results show that adolescent girls tend to score higher on several maladaptive cognitive schemas, and that these schemas tend to be more highly correlated with depressive symptoms compared to adolescent boys. Further, cognitive schema vulnerability mediated the relationship between life-stress and depressive symptoms in girls but not in boys.

Effects of rumination on child and adolescent depressive reactions to a natural disaster: the 2010 Nashville flood

The current longitudinal study tested hypotheses about Nolen-Hoeksema's (1987, 1991) response styles theory (RST) of depression in a sample of child and adolescent public school students. Wave 1 measures of rumination, distraction, and depression were obtained 6 months prior to the 2010 Nashville flood. Similar measures plus a measure of flood-related stressors were administered at Wave 2, approximately ten days after students returned to school after the flood. Results revealed an indirect effect of preflood rumination on postflood depressive symptoms via the intervening variable of postflood rumination, and partial mediation of the effect of preflood depression on postflood depression. Further, the interaction of rumination with flood-related stressors was moderated by age, suggesting that rumination may not become a strong cognitive diathesis for depression until adolescence. Developmental implications emerged for the treatment of child and adolescent victims of natural disasters and for the application of RST to children and adolescents.

Depression in early, middle and late adolescence: differential evidence for the cognitive diathesis-stress model

Cognitive theory is a prominent framework to study depression in both adults and adolescents. This theory stated that dysfunctional schemas are moderators (known as diathesis) in the association of current stress and psychopathology. However, in adolescents, less evidence has been found so far to corroborate the importance of these schemas. This study aimed to investigate in a cross-sectional design the moderating role of adolescents' early maladaptive schemas (EMS) on depressive symptoms. This will be studied in relation to both important daily stressors (i.e., maternal, paternal and peer rejection) and stressful life events.

METHOD

Adolescents (N = 228, age 12-18 years), selected from inpatient and outpatient clinical settings and a non-referred sample, completed questionnaires and interviews measuring psychopathology, cognitive schemas, peer rejection, maternal and paternal rejection, and stressful life events. Parents completed questionnaires about their adolescent measuring psychopathology, stressful life events and peer rejection, as well as their own parental behaviour.

RESULTS

Correlational analyses revealed significant associations between the study variables. Evidence was found for an interaction effect between the adolescents' EMS and peer rejection in explaining depressive symptoms, but only in late adolescents.

KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE

Stress induced by maternal and, in lesser extent, paternal rejection is contributing to depressive symptoms primarily in younger and to lesser extent in older age groups. The quality of peer relationships becomes an increasingly salient source of distress as adolescence unfolds and is certainly an important mechanism affecting depression in adolescence. Maladaptive schemas only start functioning as a cognitive diathesis in late adolescence, increasing depression in response to peer-related distress. Since maladaptive schemas are not yet operating as cognitive vulnerability factors in early and middle adolescence, early interventions for depressive disorders may be more effective compared with treatment in later adolescence.

Attentional biases for emotional faces in young children of mothers with chronic or recurrent depression

Attentional biases for negative stimuli have been observed in school-age and adolescent children of depressed mothers and may reflect a vulnerability to depression. The direction of these biases and whether they can be identified in early childhood remains unclear. The current study examined attentional biases in 5-7-year-old children of depressed and non-depressed mothers. Following a mood induction, children participated in a dot-probe task assessing biases for sad and happy faces. There was a significant interaction of group and sex: daughters of depressed mothers attended selectively to sad faces, while children of controls and sons of depressed mothers did not exhibit biases. No effects were found for happy stimuli. These findings suggest that attentional biases are discernible in early childhood and may be vulnerability markers for depression. The results also raise the possibility that sex differences in cognitive biases are evident before the emergence of sex differences in the prevalence of depression.