Risk for youth anxiety during the COVID‐19 pandemic: The interactive impact of financial stress and prepandemic electrocortical reactivity to negative self‐referential stimuli

Abstract

Despite evidence that stress exposure increases risk for internalizing symptoms in youth, it remains unclear which youth are most vulnerable. This study examined whether youth's prepandemic late positive potential (LPP), an electrocortical marker of sustained attention to affective stimuli, exacerbated the impact of stress on prospective increases in depression and anxiety symptoms from before to during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Participants were 29 youth (ages 9–16, 82.8% girls) who completed depression and anxiety symptom measures and an affective words task to assess LPP to positive and negative self‐referential stimuli prepandemic onset. Postpandemic onset, approximately 16.03 months (SD = 8.86) after their baseline assessments, youth again completed symptom measures as well as the UCLA Life Stress Interview to assess ongoing social and financial chronic stress. Results indicated a significant interaction between youth LPP to negative words and financial stress. Greater exposure to financial stress during the pandemic predicted greater anxiety symptom increases specifically for youth who demonstrated enhanced prepandemic LPP to negative words. Results were specific to the prediction of anxiety, but not depression, symptoms. If replicated in larger studies, findings highlight enhanced LPP to negative stimuli as a promising target for intervention for youth exposed to greater financial stress.

Blunted neural response to errors prospectively predicts increased symptoms of depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…These findings are consistent with vulnerability-stress models of psychopathology (Hankin & Abela, 2005; Ingram & Luxton, 2005) suggesting that individuals with pre-existing neural vulnerabilities (i.e., blunted neural response to errors) are at greater risk for developing depression symptoms when exposed to stress. Furthermore, our results are in line with evidence that both chronic and episodic stress exposure increases risk for depression (Feurer et al, 2022; C. Hammen et al, 2009; Kendler et al, 1999; Kessler, 1997; Kujawa et al, 2020) and suggest that a blunted ERN may amplify the impact of episodic stress on depression when chronic stress is also elevated.…”

The Trajectory of Depression and Anxiety Among Children and Adolescents over Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The magnitude of depression and anxiety symptoms that children experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic in our study is also higher than those reported prior to the pandemic in previous research. With respect to depression, children and adolescents in our study experienced significantly higher symptom scores during the COVID-19 pandemic than those reported prior to the pandemic, using the same measures (RCADS-P, CES-DC) across mental health history groups (all ps < .001) (Breaux et al, 2021;Duttweiler et al, 2022;Feurer et al, 2022;Walters et al, 2021). With respect to anxiety, children and adolescents in our study with no prior mental health disorder also experienced significantly higher symptom scores during the COVID-19 pandemic than those reported prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, using the same measures (SCARED-P, SCARED-C; all ps <.001).…”

Neural response to rewards moderates the within‐person association between daily positive events and positive affect during a period of stress exposure

“…For instance, participants with a larger neural response to rewards at baseline show reduced production of cortisol, a hormone secreted in response to stressors (Slominski et al, 2007), across the course of a laboratory‐based psychosocial stressor (Ethridge et al, 2020). Additionally, there is evidence that individuals with a larger neural response to rewards at a baseline laboratory visit reported fewer depressive symptoms at follow‐up during a period of high stress (i.e., the early months of the COVID‐19 pandemic), indicating that the reward system may play a role in buffering against the effects of exposure to stressful life events (Feurer et al, 2022; Freeman, Panier, et al, 2022). However, what is not clear is why a more robust neural response to rewards might be protective.…”