The Friendships and Recent Life Events of Anxious and Depressed School-Age Children

Abstract

The number of moderate to severe undesirable life events and the quality of friendships were compared between a consecutive series of 100 children aged 7-16 years with emotional disorders and a series of community controls matched for age, sex, and social class. Undesirable events and friendship difficulties exerted independent direct effects of similar magnitude on the probability of developing emotional disorders; 33% of disturbed children experienced both adversities compared with 6% of controls. An additive interaction was found for the two factors. The results were uninfluenced by the sex or pubertal status of the subjects. There appears to be no greater probability of being anxious rather than depressed in the presence of life events, alone or in combinations with friendship difficulties. Recent undesirable life events and friendship difficulties arise through independent social pathways and may exert their effects through different psychological mechanisms.

Severe Life Events and Chronic Adversities as Antecedents to Anxiety in Children: A Matched Control Study

“…This is surprising given that as most anxiety disorders take a chronic course, environmental factors important to onset are likely to be those present in childhood (Rapee and Bryant 2008). The limited evidence available indicates that anxious children experience a greater number of life events and some specific chronic adversities in the 12-month period preceding the onset of anxiety in comparison to healthy controls (e.g., Goodyer et al 1988Goodyer et al , 1990.…”

“…First, in two of the studies anxious children were identified by an unstructured psychiatric interview and were obtained from severely disturbed populations attending in-patient and outpatient hospital-based psychiatric clinics (Goodyer et al 1988(Goodyer et al , 1990, which is not characteristic of most anxious children. The only study to identify children using a structured psychiatric interview (Gothelf et al 2004) relied on a child self-report checklist to assess life events and thus failed to provide a more independent determination of the "severity" or impact of stressors.…”

“…Previous studies with anxious children have either provided no detail as to how onset was defined or assessed (e.g., Gothelf et al 2004), or have employed a definition based on the appearance of symptoms of anxiety (e.g., Goodyer et al 1988Goodyer et al , 1990. Given the marked overlap between pre-existing temperamental traits and anxiety disorder (e.g., Hudson and Rapee 2004;Pérez-Edgar and Fox 2005;Rapee and Spence 2004), focus on impairment in the child's psychosocial functioning in addition to anxiety symptoms may provide a clearer definition of onset Sandberg et al 2001).…”

Povezanost Vršnjačkoga Zlostavljanja I Psiholoških Poteškoća: Prospektivno Istraživanje

“…Moguće je da stres koji može nastati kao posljedica sudjelovanja u vršnjačkom zlostavljanju zapravo dovodi do povećanog rizika za razvoj psiholoških poteškoća. Da stresni životni događaji imaju važan utjecaj u nastanku psiholoških poteškoća kod djece, potvrđeno je već u ranim istraži-vanjima koja su se bavila ispitivanjem utjecaja stresa na mentalno zdravlje djece (Brown i Harris, 1978;Goodyer, Wright i Altham, 1990;Boivin, Hymel i Bukowski, 1995;Sandberg, Rutter, Pickles, McGuinness i Angold, 2001;Arsenealut, Walsh i Kali Trzesniewski, 2006). U periodu rane adolescencije djeca su posebno podložna sudjelovanju u vršnjačkom zlostavljanju i ono je u toj dobi posebno intenzivno i perzistentno, što znači učestalost stresnih situacija, a samim tim i povećan rizik za razvoj psiholoških poteškoća (Rigby, 1999).…”

Toward Effective Early Intervention and Prevention Strategies for Major Affective Disorders: A Review of Antecedents and Risk Factors

“…While the mechanism linking early adversity and multiple lifetime exit events to juvenile depression is unclear, evidence suggests that low self-esteem and ongoing friendship difficulties may be vulnerability factors (39,40). In the range offactors that intensify or ameliorate response to a risk factor, vulnerability and protective factors have been seen as opposite poles (41).…”