Abstract
The answer to the question to what extent depressive symptoms which occur in the middle and late adolescence period affect the quality of life in adulthood. The sample group consisted of 308 adults out of 3,445 who had participated in a 2000 study of prevalence of depressive symptoms among students. 17 years later, letters were sent to all study participants with information about the purpose of the study and an original questionnaire, with quality of life and quality of social network scales (the Collaborative Research on Ageing in Europe Social Network Index - COURAGE-SNI and WHOQOL-AGE) attached. The presence of depressive symptoms in the untreated population of adolescents is associated, in the case of women, with poorer education and fewer opportunities to work in adulthood compared to their non-depressive peers. In contrast, the men who were not depressive in adolescence take jobs in which they are more likely to earn a high income. An analysis of the quality of life showed statistically significant differences between men and women. In the group of non-depressive men, greater satisfaction with owned financial resources was observed. In the case of adult women, those who had been depressive in adolescence declared a sense of lower overall quality of life and satisfaction with the way of spending free time, satisfaction with achievement of life goals and owned financial means. Non-depressive women presented higher quality of social networks 17 years later. Long-term observation in our prospective study supports the hypothesis of a developmental character of adolescent depression.
Highlights
Developing since the 1970s, for nearly twenty years the concept of quality of life has been the subject of numerous theoretical considerations, focusing primarily on attempts to define this multidimensional construct and debate on the role of objective and subjective indicators in determining its individual dimensions
The presence of depressive symptoms in the untreated population of adolescents is associated, in the case of women, with poorer education and fewer opportunities to work in adulthood compared to their non-depressive peers
Long-term observation in our prospective study supports the hypothesis of a developmental character of adolescent depression
Summary
Developing since the 1970s, for nearly twenty years the concept of quality of life has been the subject of numerous theoretical considerations, focusing primarily on attempts to define this multidimensional construct and debate on the role of objective and subjective indicators in determining its individual dimensions. Quality of life was defined as “the individuals’ personal perceptions of their position in life in the context of the culture and value system in which they live as well as in relation to their tasks, expectations, standards and interests Such a broad approach means a comprehensive self-assessment by an individual of their physical health, mental state, level of independence, personal beliefs, social interactions and relations with the environment” [1, p. The authors of DSM-5 pointed out that mood disorders, especially depressive ones, are characteristic of the adolescent period It was not until the third quarter of the last century that the occurrence of depression in adolescence began to be recognized, but its place in the classifications at that time was not clear. A meta-analysis of studies published between 1980 and 2017, which analysed the fate of adolescents with an initial diagnosis of a major depressive episode based on DSM-IV criteria, and which included 31 studies based on 136 tests of 24 cohorts, showed that depression in adolescence increases the risk of academic underachievement and unemployment in adulthood, and is linked to having children [2]
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