The Architecture of Cognitive Vulnerability to Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Network Analysis Study
- PDF / 1,042,800 Bytes
- 15 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 38 Downloads / 217 Views
The Architecture of Cognitive Vulnerability to Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Network Analysis Study Igor Marchetti1 · Patrick Pössel2 · Ernst H. W. Koster3 Accepted: 1 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Rates of subclinical symptoms and full-blown depression significantly increase during adolescence. Hence, understanding how multiple cognitive risk factors are related to depression in adolescence is of major importance. For this purpose, we simultaneously considered multiple cognitive vulnerabilities, as proposed by three major cognitive theories for depression, namely Beck’s cognitive theory, hopelessness theory, and response style theory. In this four-wave study, we investigated the architecture, interplay, and stability of cognitive vulnerability mechanisms, depressive symptoms, and stressors in a large group of adolescents over a period of one year (n = 469; mean age = 15 years; 64% female). Network analysis was used to shed light on the structure of cognitive vulnerabilities in a data-driven fashion. Analyses revealed that different cognitive vulnerabilities were intertwined and automatic thoughts played the role of hub node in the network. Moreover, the interplay among cognitive vulnerabilities and depressive symptoms was already markedly stable in adolescence and did not change over a 12-month period. Finally, no evidence was found that cognitive vulnerabilities interacted with stressors, as proposed by diathesis-stress models. These findings advance our understanding of multiple cognitive risk factors for depression in adolescence. Keywords Vulnerability · Depression · Adolescence network analysis · Moderated network analysis · Clinical psychology
Introduction Adolescent depression is considered a global health crisis (Patel, 2013), provided it is associated with poor psychosocial functioning, poor academic performance, and lower physical and mental health (Andersen & Teicher, 2008; Fombonne, Wostear, Cooper, Harrington, & Rutter, 2001, Zisook et al., 2007). Subclinical levels of depression are present in more than 20% of adolescents (Bertha & Balazs, Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00733-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Igor Marchetti [email protected] 1
Department of Life Sciences, Psychology Unit, University of Trieste, Via Edoardo Weiss, 21, 34128 Trieste, Italy
2
Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Louisville, Louisville, USA
3
Department of Experimental‑Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
2013) and about 18% of individuals experience full-blown depression before turning 19 year (Lu, 2019). Hence, examining the cognitive vulnerabilities associated with depressive symptoms in adolescence is of particular relevance since this transition period is characterized by a marked increase of depressive symptoms compared with younger cohorts (Bufferd, Dougherty, Carlson, Rose, & Klein, 20
Data Loading...
