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Gepubliceerd in:

01-02-2006

Depressive Symptoms, Stress, and Support: Gendered Trajectories From Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Auteurs: Sarah O. Meadows, J. Scott Brown, Glen H. Elder Jr.

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence | Uitgave 1/2006

Abstract

Stressful transitions in adolescence increase depressive symptoms, especially among girls. However, little is known about this risk as adolescents mature into young adulthood, especially about how parental support affects depression trajectories during this period. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this analysis investigates the role of gender in structuring the associations among stressful life events, parental support, and depression. Females reported more depressive symptoms at the outset of the study, a rank order that persisted along declining depression trajectories into young adulthood. In addition, stress accounts for the decline in trajectories for females but not males. Support from both parents has a salubrious effect on mental health, regardless of gender, but this effect dissipates as adolescents age into adulthood.

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Plots of depressive symptom trajectories (not shown) confirmed a linear pattern that did not differ by age.

Interestingly, though their depression measures are from the SCl-90-R rather than the CES-D, Ge et al. (1994) present factor loading differences by gender that also range from 0.01 to 0.10. They also conclude that these differences are not substantively meaningful.

Ge et al. (1994) find a nonlinear pattern of depressive symptoms. It is possible that the same nonlinearity is in these data. However, age patterns of symptoms in our data are linear. We are unable to actually test nonlinear parameterizations because we have only 3 waves of data. But we note that (1) our linear specification provides moderately good fit and that (2) the curvilinear component of the latent trajectory model in Ge et al. is probably driven by the depression patterns of the youngest sample members in their study (as young as 9-years old). The youngest members of the Add Health sample are about 13-years old at wave 1.

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Titel: Depressive Symptoms, Stress, and Support: Gendered Trajectories From Adolescence to Young Adulthood
Auteurs: Sarah O. Meadows
J. Scott Brown
Glen H. Elder Jr.
Publicatiedatum: 01-02-2006
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence / Uitgave 1/2006
Print ISSN: 0047-2891
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-6601
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-9021-6

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