Article
The role of stressful life events in the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence—a longitudinal community study
Trine Waaktaar,
Anne Inger Helmen Borge, Hans Petter Fundingsrud,
Helen Johnsen Christie,
Svenn Torgersen,
Corresponding Author
Trine Waaktaar
Nic Waals Institute and Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Region East and South, P.O. Box 23, Taasen, N-0801 Norway
Corresponding author. Tel.: +47-22-02-89-16; fax: +47-22-02-89-21Search for more papers by this authorHans Petter Fundingsrud
University Hospital of North Norway, Norway
Search for more papers by this authorHelen Johnsen Christie
Nic Waals Institute and Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Region East and South, P.O. Box 23, Taasen, N-0801 Norway
Search for more papers by this authorTrine Waaktaar,
Anne Inger Helmen Borge, Hans Petter Fundingsrud,
Helen Johnsen Christie,
Svenn Torgersen,
Corresponding Author
Trine Waaktaar
Nic Waals Institute and Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Region East and South, P.O. Box 23, Taasen, N-0801 Norway
Corresponding author. Tel.: +47-22-02-89-16; fax: +47-22-02-89-21Search for more papers by this authorHans Petter Fundingsrud
University Hospital of North Norway, Norway
Search for more papers by this authorHelen Johnsen Christie
Nic Waals Institute and Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Region East and South, P.O. Box 23, Taasen, N-0801 Norway
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
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.
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