Preadolescents' Somatic and Cognitive-Affective Depressive Symptoms Are Differentially Related to Cardiac Autonomic Function and Cortisol: The TRAILS Study

Abstract

Somatic and cognitive-affective depressive symptoms differ in their association with both cardiac autonomic and HPA axis function in preadolescents. Particularly, somatic depression symptoms may mark cardiac risk.

Plasticity genes do not modify associations between physical activity and depressive symptoms.

“…These items include sadness, loss of pleasure, crying, self-harm, suicidal ideation, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, loss of energy, overtiredness, eating problems, and sleeping problems; and are scored on a 3-point scale (0 ϭ never or not at all true, 1 ϭ sometimes true, and 2 ϭ very often or very true). One of the sleep items ("I sleep more than most kids") was excluded because exclusion of this item increased the internal consistency of the scale (Bosch et al, 2009). Scores on the remaining 12 items were averaged to construct a total Depressive symptoms scale with an internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.74 at T1, of 0.81 at T2, and 0.86 at T3.…”

Bidirectional Prospective Associations Between Physical Activity and Depressive Symptoms. The TRAILS Study

“…The Affective Problems scale contains 13 items covering depressive symptoms according to the DSM-IV [29], that is, sadness, loss of pleasure, crying, self-harm, suicidal ideation, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, loss of energy, overtiredness, eating problems, and sleeping problems. Because a previous study in the same sample had shown that omission of one sleep item ("I sleep more than most kids") increased the internal consistency of the scale [15], this item was excluded. Scores on the remaining 12 items were averaged to construct a total depressive symptoms scale with an internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of .75 at T1, .84 at T2, and .89 at T3.…”

“…Scores on the remaining 12 items were averaged to construct a total depressive symptoms scale with an internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of .75 at T1, .84 at T2, and .89 at T3. In addition, we constructed a somatic symptoms subscale and an affective symptoms subscale, as described by Bosch et al [15]. The affective symptom subscale included loss of pleasure, crying, self-harm, suicidal ideation, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of guilt, and sadness, whereas the somatic symptoms subscale included lack of appetite, overtiredness, reduced sleep, trouble sleeping, and lack of energy.…”

“…Instruments that are used to assess depressive symptoms vary widely with respect to the symptom profiles they represent, where some instruments do not include somatic symptoms, whereas other instruments contain multiple questions on somatic symptoms. It has been shown that somatic and affective symptoms are differentially associated with cardiac autonomic [14] and HPA axis function [15]. As these two subgroups of symptoms show distinct patterns of association with various physiological measures, they may be differentially related to PA as well.…”

Reduced Cardiac Autonomic Flexibility Associated with Medically Unexplained Somatic Complaints in the Context of Internalizing Symptoms in a Preadolescent Population Sample: The TRAILS Study

“…We expected to find reduced autonomic flexibility (lower HF-HRV and BRS) in association with MUSC. In addition, for the first time, we report on the association between BRS and anxiety symptoms in youths [ 18 ; for HF-HRV and depression symptoms see [19][20][21].The participants were 921 10-to 13-year-old Dutch preadolescents (53.1% girls; 11.5 8 0.5 years) from the population cohort TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey [21][22][23] . Written informed consent was obtained from the parents; children participated voluntarily.…”