Development of depression from preadolescence to young adulthood: Emerging gender differences in a 10-year longitudinal study.

Abstract

The authors investigated the emergence of gender differences in clinical depression and the overall development of depression from preadolescence to young adulthood among members of a complete birth cohort using a prospective longitudinal approach with structured diagnostic interviews administered 5 times over the course of 10 years. Small gender differences in depression (females greater than males) first began to emerge between the ages of 13 and 15. However, the greatest increase in this gender difference occurred between ages 15 and 18. Depression rates and accompanying gender differences for a university student subsample were no different than for a nonuniversity subsample.There was no gender difference for depression recurrence or for depression symptom severity. The peak increase in both overall rates of depression and new cases of depression occurred between the ages of 15 and 18. Results suggest that middle-to-late adolescence (ages 15-18) may be a critical time for studying vulnerability to depression because of the higher depression rates and the greater risk for depression onset and dramatic increase in gender differences in depression during this period.

Cognitive Vulnerability–Stress Model of Depression During Adolescence: Investigating Depressive Symptom Specificity in a Multi-Wave Prospective Study

“…It is important to investigate etiological theories with diverse samples to enhance generalizability of findings and to explore possible ethnic differences in cognitive vulnerabilities, stressors, and psychopathological symptoms. Moreover, there are well-documented age and sex effects on the development of depression (Hankin et al 1998;Hankin et al 2008a;Twenge and NolenHoeksema 2002) such that depressive symptoms and disorder become increasingly more elevated and prevalent throughout adolescence, especially for girls, who begin to become more depressed than boys during early adolescence. The sex difference in depression becomes most dramatic during middle adolescence.…”

“…Second, it is important to understand and predict prospective elevations in psychopathological symptoms during early and middle adolescence because symptoms become more stable and disorders more likely to recur in late adolescence through adulthood (Rutter et al 2003). For depression, most individuals experience first onset of depression in middle to late adolescence (Hankin et al 1998), and those with a past episode are two to seven times more likely to experience a recurrence in adulthood (Rutter et al 2003).…”

Experimental test of the affect‐regulation theory of bulimic symptoms and substance use: A randomized trial

“…The reinforcement received may lead to elevated substance use rates and subsequently the use-related negative consequences that characterize substance abuse. Because mood disturbances increase markedly for girls during adolescence, 16 depressive symptoms might be a particularly important predictor of substance use for this population. Depressive symptoms and negative affect have been found to prospectively predict future increases in substance use, [17][18][19][20][21] although null findings have been reported.…”

Longitudinal Profiles of Girls’ Irritable, Defiant and Antagonistic Oppositional Symptoms: Evidence for Group Based Differences in Symptom Severity

“…As the severity of depression and anxiety symptoms increases exponentially in girls at, or post puberty (Angold, Costello & Worthman, 1998;Hankin et al, 1998), it may be that the post-pubertal years may be associated with the observation of a group with IR prominence in girls. In support of this, we did note that while the slope of the other trajectories decreased over time, the slope of the high irritability trajectory increased.…”

“…The PGS data contains the full complement of DSM-5 ODD symptoms at all waves of the study to enable subdimension identification. Of particular relevance for the study of ODD subdimensions in girls is that the prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders increases exponentially in girls at, or post puberty (Angold, Costello & Worthman, 1998;Hankin et al, 1998). This fact, in concert with the association of ODD irritability with later depression in general, suggest that girls' trajectories of irritability may also increase or plateau around the transition to adolescence.…”