Trajectories of depressive mood in adolescents: Does parental work or parent-adolescent relationship matter? A follow-up study through junior high school in Finland

Abstract

The purpose of this follow-up study was to investigate stability and change in depressive mood and possible explanatory factors between ages 13 to 16. The sample consisted of 116 Finnish adolescents (50 boys and 66 girls) drawn from two junior high schools in Central Finland.The data were obtained by means of questionnaires which were completed by the same adolescents three times, in 1999 (mean age 13.0 years), in 2001 (mean age 14.7 years), and in 2002 (mean age 15.9 years). The semiparametric group-based mixture modeling revealed four developmentally different trajectories in depressive mood, two indicating stability and two showing change in the level of symptoms over time. The majority (63%) of the adolescents (typically boys) managed the transition phase without depressive feelings while one quarter (typically girls) tended to experience some depressive thoughts and feelings throughout the follow-up. There was a small group of adolescents (6.5%) among whom symptoms increased until the end of follow-up, and another group (5.5%) who suffered from depressive mood only at the beginning of the follow-up. Variability in adolescents' depressive mood wasconnected to conflicts with parents (especially with fathers) and experiences of negative spillover from parental (especially fathers') work to the parent–adolescent relationship. Furthermore, the relationships between an adolescent and his/her parents (especially the father) seemed to become gradually more distant throughout the follow-up, and most of the life changes were experienced in the beginning of the junior high school.