Research report
Stressful life events and depressive problems in early adolescent boys and girls: The influence of parental depression, temperament and family environment

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Abstract

Background

Stressful life events increase the probability of depressive problems in early adolescence. Several genetic and environmental risk factors may change individual sensitivity to the depressogenic effect of these events. We examined modification by parental depression and gender, and mediation of the former by temperament and family environment.

Methods

Data were collected as part of a longitudinal cohort study of (pre)adolescents (n = 2127). During the first assessment wave at approximately age 11, we assessed parental depression, family functioning, perceived parenting behaviours, and temperamental frustration and fearfulness. At the second wave, about two and a half years later, stressful life events between the first and second assessment were assessed. Depressive problems were measured at both waves.

Results

Adolescents with parents who had a (lifetime) depressive episode were more sensitive to the depressogenic effect of stressful events than adolescents without depressed parents. Furthermore, girls are more sensitive to these effects than boys. The modifying effect of parental depression was not mediated by temperament, family functioning and perceived parenting.

Limitations

Life events were assessed without consideration of contextual information. Depressive problems were measured by questionnaires that did not directly represent DSM-IV criteria. The measure of parental depression was unspecific regarding severity and timing of depressive episodes.

Conclusion

The results suggest that gender and parental depression are associated with increased sensitivity to depression after experiencing stressful life events during adolescence.

Introduction

Depressive problems in adolescence can be persistent and recurrent (Angst et al., 2000) and represent a potential cause for psychopathology and poor psychosocial adjustments in adult life (Goodyer et al., 2000). The experience of stressful life events is a well-established risk factor for the development of depressive problems in adolescence and adulthood (Goodyer et al., 2000, Kendler et al., 1995, Kessler, 1997, Larson and Ham, 1993, Ormel et al., 2001, Rutter, 2000, Silberg et al., 2001). Whether or not stressful life events trigger depressive problems depends on adolescents' sensitivity to stress, which is influenced by a variety of genetic and environmental risk factors. We propose that parental depression is one of the risk factors that may amplify the association between stressful life events and depressive problems in adolescence.

Depressive problems run in families (e.g. Goodman and Gotlib, 1999), which may be due to transmitted vulnerability genes as well as to offspring exposure to an adverse and non-supportive family environment. From twin, adoption and family studies we know that depression is moderately heritable (e.g. Kendler and Prescott, 1999, Sullivan et al., 2000, Kendler et al., 1999), and that genetic factors may modify the association between life events and depression (Kendler et al., 1995, Silberg et al., 2001). Consistent with this, recent molecular genetic work suggests that a functional polymorphism in the promotor region of the serotonin transporter gene moderates the depressogenic effects of stressful life events (Caspi et al., 2003, Eley et al., 2004, Jacobs et al., 2006, Zammit and Owen, 2006). Based on these findings we hypothesised that parental depression would amplify the effect of stressful life events on adolescents' depressive problems.

Furthermore, individual differences in sensitivity to stressful life events may be explained by differences in negative affectivity. Negative affectivity, a temperament dimension encompassing frustration and fearfulness, reflects the tendency to experience negative emotions when confronted with environmental challenges (Rothbart et al., 2000). Several studies (e.g. Lonigan et al., 2003), including work from our own group (Oldehinkel et al., 2006) have revealed associations between negative affectivity and depressive problems in adolescence. Negative affectivity and depressive problems share genetic risk factors (e.g. Kendler et al., 2006). Ormel et al. (2005) showed that the effect of parental psychopathology on offspring psychopathology was partly mediated by preadolescent temperament. Considering this, we expected that (part of) the postulated modification of the depressogenic effect of stressful life events by parental depression would be mediated by temperamental frustration and fearfulness.

The modifying effect of parental depression could also be mediated by family environmental factors. Lack of family closeness, poor communication, absence of supportive relationships, parental rejection and little emotional warmth have all been found to be prevalent in families with depressed parents, and are associated with an increased risk of emotional and behavioural problems in offspring (e.g. Pilowksy et al., 2006, Meares et al., 2000, Davies and Windle, 1997, Beardslee et al., 1996). The stress-buffering model (Cohen and Wills, 1985) proposes that, when faced with negative experiences, individuals with greater support from families and friends are less likely to become depressed. Conversely, poor family circumstances may increase the impact of stressful life events. Hence, family environmental factors could also mediate (part of) the postulated modification of the depressogenic effect of stressful life events on adolescents' depressive problems.

Prevalence of depressive problems, number and kind of stressful events, and sensitivity to stress, are all different for males and females (e.g. Brown and Harris, 1978, Sherrill et al., 1997). The transition into adolescence seems to be the starting point for an increase in depressive problems in girls (Angold et al., 1998), probably set off because of a variety of gender specific hormonal and social developments (Ge et al., 2001, Larson and Ham, 1993, Cyranowski et al., 2000, Silberg et al., 2001). Therefore, associations between stressful life events and adolescents' depressive problems cannot be studied without taking into account the possibility of gender differences in each of the effects examined.

The aim of this study was to explore if parental depression and gender modified the sensitivity to the depressogenic effect of stressful events in a large population-based sample of early adolescents. In addition, we investigated if the effect of parental depression was mediated by temperamental frustration and fearfulness, and by family environmental factors, more specifically, perceived parental emotional warmth and rejection and family functioning. The hypothesised associations are presented in Fig. 1.

Section snippets

Sample

TRAILS: The TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey is a large prospective population study of Dutch adolescents who are measured biennially until at least 25 years of age. The present study involves data from the first and second assessment wave of TRAILS, which ran from, respectively, March 2001 to July 2002, and September 2003 to December 2004. At the first wave, 2230 children were enrolled in the study of which 2149 children participated in the second wave. The mean age at T1 was

Descriptive statistics

Mean scores or percentages of the variables used are shown in Table 1. For descriptive purposes, we presented the mean of the unstandardised total scores of parent and self-reported adolescent depressive problems rather than the mean of the standardised scores.

Bivariate associations

Correlations between the variables in the study were generally low to moderate (Table 2). In both sexes, depressive problems at T2 were significantly associated with all other variables.

Modification of the stress-depressive problems association by parental depression and gender

The three-way interactions of stressful events,

Discussion

The first goal of this study was to explore if the relationship between stressful life events and depressive problems in adolescence was modified by parental depression and gender in a large population sample of Dutch early adolescents. Secondly, we wanted to investigate if the effect of parental depression was mediated by temperamental frustration and fearfulness, and by family environmental factors. Consistent with our expectations and other studies (e.g. Goodyer et al., 2000, Larson and Ham,

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS). Participating centres of TRAILS include various Departments of the University of Groningen, the Erasmus Medical Centre of Rotterdam, the University of Nijmegen, the Trimbos Institute, and the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. TRAILS is financially supported by grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (GB-MW 940-38-011, GB-MAG 480-01-006, ZonMw 100.001.001; NWO 175.010.2003.005) and

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    E.M.C. Bouma analysed the data and wrote the paper supervised by A.J. Oldehinkel. J. Ormel and F.C. Verhulst gave valuable suggestions in the final stages of the paper. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

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