title: The role of stressful life events in the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence--a longitudinal community study.
abstract: Depressive symptoms were measured in a cohort of community-based adolescents (n = 163) at two time-points, with 1 year intervening. At Time 2, participants also answered a scale about past-year stressful life events. Depressive symptoms increased from Time 1 to Time 2, the effect being stronger for girls than for boys. Depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with concurrent measures of recent stressful life events, but this relationship disappeared after controlling for previous depressive symptoms. Rather, previous level of depressive symptoms predicted stressful life events. This demonstrates that a unidirectional model of stressful life events as the cause of depressive symptoms in adolescents is too simplistic.
authors.affiliation: Nic Waals Institute and Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Region East and South, P.O. Box 23, N-0801 Taasen, Norway. trine.waaktaar@r-bup.no
authors.forename: Trine
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Waaktaar
authors.forename: Anne Inger Helmen
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Borge
authors.forename: Hans Petter
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Fundingsrud
authors.forename: Helen Johnsen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Christie
authors.forename: Svenn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Torgersen
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D009664:Norway; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*