Gender, Depressive Symptoms, and Daily Cigarette Use

Abstract

Objective It is widely known that cigarette use and depressive symptoms co-occur during adolescence and young adulthood and that there are gender differences in smoking initiation, progression, and co-occurrence with other drug use. Given that females have an earlier onset of depressive symptoms while males have an earlier onset of cigarette use, this study explored the possible bidirectional development of cigarette use and depressive symptoms by gender across the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Gender differences in the stability and crossed effects of depressive symptoms and cigarette smoking during the transition to young adulthood, controlling for other known risk factors, were examined using a nationally representative longitudinal sample. Methods A bivariate auto-regressive multi-group structural equation model examined the longitudinal stability and crossed relationships between a latent construct of depressive symptoms and cigarette smoking over four waves of data. Data for this study came from four waves of participants (N=6,501) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. At each of four waves, participants completed a battery of measures including questions on depressive symptoms and an ordinal measure of number of cigarettes smoked per day. Results The best fitting bivariate autoregressive models were gender-specific, included both crossed and parallel associations between depressive symptoms and cigarette use during the transition to adulthood, and controlled for wave-specific parental smoking, alcohol use, and number of friends who smoke. For females, greater depressive symptoms at each wave, except the first one, were associated with greater subsequent cigarette use. There were bidirectional associations between depressive symptoms and cigarette use only for females during young adulthood, but not for males. Conclusions The development of depressive symptoms and cigarette use from adolescence and into young adulthood follows similar patterns for males and females. Controlling for the correlation and stability between initial levels of depressive symptoms and cigarette use from adolescence into young adulthood, there remains a crossed association between cigarette use and depressive symptoms specific for females during young adulthood. The findings suggest that prevention interventions focused on mental health should include warnings that cigarette use may exacerbate depressive symptoms.

Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with depressive tendencies in general Japanese men and women: NIPPON DATA2010

“…Smoking was associated with an increased risk of developing depression in women, but not in men. A relationship between cigarette use and depressive symptoms has been consistently reported [32], while gender differences in this relationship remain inconclusive [33, 34]. Smoking rates in women are lower in Japan than in Western countries.…”

Examining sex differences in pleiotropic effects for depression and smoking using polygenic and gene‐region aggregation techniques

“…Women also report greater perceived risks from quitting smoking, including greater negative affect-a key feature of MDD (McKee, O'Malley, Salovey, Krishnan-Sarin, & Mazure, 2005). Moreover, though concurrent depression and cigarette consumption are comorbid across sex (John, Meyer, Rumpf, & Hapke, 2004), longitudinal data suggests that only among women are there bidirectional associations between smoking behavior and depression over time (Bares, 2014).…”

Association Between the Location of Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Depressive Symptoms among South Korean Adolescents

“…In addition, adolescent smokers experience more stress than non-smoking adolescents [11]. A number of studies have shown a significant association between depression and smoking [12,13], emphasizing the importance of smoking cessation [14]. Furthermore, in non-smoking adolescents, exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety [15][16][17], and this association was different according to gender [18].…”