Anne C. Petersen

The protective role of coping and social resources for depressive symptoms among young adolescents

Early adolescence is a period of the life course involving high levels of challenge that are stressful for some, perhaps resulting in depressive symptoms. In this study, adolescents were divided into four groups based on indices of depression and negative life events. Group differences in coping style, mastery, optimism, and social resources as well as group differences in patterns of change were investigated. Participants were 458 adolescents in sixth and seventh grade from a rural working class community. Subjects were assessed twice over a one-year period. Analyses revealed that the four groups were characterized by different levels of coping and social resources. Asymptomatic youth reported higher levels of optimism, mastery, active coping, and more positive relationships with parents and peers than did symptomatic adolescents. These same characteristics distinguished the resilient adolescents from the vulnerable adolescents, suggesting potential stress-buffering effects. One year later, the adolescents who were low on both depressive symptoms and negative life events continued to report more individual and contextual resources than the adolescents in the other groups.

Developmental Issues Influencing Guidelines for Adolescent Health Research: A Review

Adolescent development brings many opportunities to adolescents as research participants. They may be enthusiastic participants, especially if the focus of the research is of interest to the adolescents. Their increasing sense of self and development of autonomy may yield open, thoughtful responses less likely with older research participants. At the same time, the researcher must be aware of particular vulnerabilities of adolescents. Cognitive and reasoning capacity emerges gradually over the adolescent decade, making younger adolescents less capable than older adolescents of effective reasoning. The researcher can adjust materials to be understandable to the younger adolescent but should also recognize that inexperience could increase anxiety or emotionality about an issue not problematic to an older adolescent or adult. Making clear the right of the adolescent to refuse to discuss particular issues usually permits more honest responses, and increases the likelihood of consent to research or parts of research. Especially stressful circumstances may cause degradation of reasoning capacity suggesting that the researcher needs to assess whether the adolescent is able to make a wise decision about participation, as well as about particular responses. The researcher can usually identify ways to alleviate stress in the study situation and should take all steps necessary to obtain both informed consent and valid responses. Existing research provides clear evidence that most adolescents, at least past age 14 or 15 years, are able to function as well as adults research participants under most circumstances. With younger adolescents and under stressful situations, the researcher can find ways to minimize risk from research and increase the likelihood of valid responses.

The Pubertal Development Scale: A Rural and Suburban Comparison

The Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) is a noninvasive measure of pubertal development. The purpose of this study was to compare means and standard deviations on the PDS across samples of seventh graders from rural Iowa and suburban Chicago who were matched on gender, age, race, and grade in school. Matched samples of boys each comprised 50 subjects; those of girls each comprised 52 subjects. Results of MANOVAs showed that rural Iowa girls were more advanced on the five markers of pubertal development than were suburban Chicago girls. Rural Iowa boys were more advanced than their counterparts in the suburban Chicago sample on four of the five markers. Psychometric analysis of the five-item scale suggested adequate internal consistency for boys and girls (.66 to .81). The predictive validity of the PDS was satisfactory. Possible reasons for differences in rates of development are discussed.

Cortisol reactivity and anxiety and depression in pregnant adolescents: A longitudinal perspective

The purpose of this investigation was to examine: (1) the relations among cortisol reactivity (short term changes in cortisol concentration) and anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents during pregnancy and early postpartum, and (2) cortisol reactivity and psychosocial variables as predictors of anxiety and depression symptoms in pregnancy and early postpartum. Cortisol reactivity, an index of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity, was hypothesized to be a vulnerability factor for poor physical and mental health outcomes in adolescents. Forty adolescents aged 14 to 19 years (M = 17.3, SD = 1.3) were enrolled in the study and were seen at < 20 weeks gestation (T1), 34-36 weeks gestation (T2), and 2-3 weeks postpartum (T3). Blood was drawn for cortisol at T1 and T3. Psychological assessments of anxiety and depression symptoms, life optimism, and self-worth were administered at T1, T2, and T3. There were significant correlations among cortisol reactivity and anxiety and depression symptoms at T1 and T3, but the correlations were the reverse of the hypothesized direction. Pregnant adolescents with increased cortisol reactivity (cortisol concentrations that increased across a 40-min period) had fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than other adolescents. Longitudinal analyses showed that anxiety and depression symptoms at T1 were a stronger predictor of postpartum anxiety and depression than was cortisol reactivity, life optimism, self-worth, or age at pregnancy.

Social changes among youth: The United States experience☆

The tremendous increase in research on adolescence over the past 20 years, and especially the last decade, has produced a great deal of knowledge about adolescent development and the development of problems during adolescence. This new knowledge should lead to more effective interventions. Although more research is needed on basic developmental processes and context influences, this is especially the case in the area of effective interventions. The next decade may bring significant new knowledge that will dramatically improve the lives of young people in the United States. This is desperately needed as the current status of youth must change.

Depression and Body Image Disorders in Adolescence

B oth depression and eating disorders have significant morbidity for adolescent girls and young women. These problems increase during adolescence,l-3 and there is some evidence that they increase above ultimate adult levels. 3 The gender differences that emerge in the adolescent period also persist into adulthood in both of these disorders. 4-6 Why are these disorders more prevalent among women than among men?7-9 The developmental issues involved may provide clues. The popular view of adolescence is that pubertal changes affect moods, and many have assumed that these biologic changes somehow create more mood problems for girls than for boys, leading to more serious psychopathology. Thus far, research has not adequately documented a direct link between pubertal change and moodiness, or the more serious problems of depression and eating disorders. 3 Although this lack of evidence may be in part due to the difficulty in studying these things in young people,lO we also need to examine the social factors associated with adolescent mood states and psychobiologic problems. The biologic changes of puberty are second only in rate and significance to what is seen in infancy, but the big difference is that adolescents can observe what is happening to them and their peers. Our research shows very clearly that biologic changes need to be examined along with changes in social contexts. Adolescence is also characterized by dramatic changes in every major social context, especially among family, peers, and school. 4, 11 Both biologic and social factors need to be considered for a complete picture.,10 Body image and depressive affect problems are linked to developmental change in each domain of individual development and each social context. 12 For example, pubertal development involves an increase in body fat as body shape changes. This increase in body fat is often misconstrued as a weight problem and is then associated with increases in dieting and other unhealthy behaviors related to weight gain. 13,14 This may lead to a distorted or poor body image and depressed affect for the cultural ideal of attractiveness (particularly for females) is one of a slender, long-limbed shape that is more typical of prepubertal development than of the mature womans body after

Healthy Adolescent Development

Adolescence is a time that is filled with opportunity, challenge, and risk. It is a time of opportunity because the child enters the period generally still possessing the “little girl” or “little boy” body and mind and leaves the second decade of life with a new body, many new skills, and the thinking and reasoning ability to use those new skills in sophisticated ways (Petersen & Leffert, 1995a). Along the way, the adolescent is confronted with many challenges, some of which are risky because they involve making decisions about behaviors that could endanger a healthy lifestyle in the future (Crockett & Petersen, 1993). In this chapter we will examine adolescence as a time of special health risk and opportunity. We will review the concept of adolescence as a developmental transition, critical aspects of development that may contribute to health risks, the domains of adolescent health risk, and opportunities for health promotion during adolescence.

Depression and body image problems in adolescence

A lthough most previous studies in this area were done on clinical or college-aged populations, researchers are now finding that approximately one in four adolescent,girls has a serious eating disorder, in contrast to (from Dr. Petersen s own data) about 6% of boys. Also from her own research, which is one of the first studies to look at measures of depression or depressive affect among nonclinical populations followed longitudinally over the adolescent decade, Dr. Petersen found that about 60% of girls and 40% of boys in the 12th grade reported at least one serious depressive episode within the previous four years. This rate is much higher than that reported by this sample in early adolescence (eighth grade) or late adolescence. The gender differences seen in adolescence persist into adulthood in both these areas, Dr. Petersen added, leading her and other researchers to ask, Why are they more prevalent among women then among men? In general, however, and in contrast to what most people believe, studies of national populations reflect steadily increasing trends of self-esteem over the adolescent decade---although some of these data have not been tabulated separately by gender. Dr. Petersens data on boys and girls aged 11 to 21 reflect steady positive increases in emotional tone for boys, and for girls, a steady increase in early adolescence and then some decline. The popular notion of puberty as a period fraught with emotional difficu l ty -which is only partially borne out--is a corollary to the negative views that our society holds about adolescence is general. Dr. Petersen illustrated this point with a number of cartoons featuring despondent youth. The hormonal milieu of puberty is typically held accountable, and, indeed, these biologic changes are second only in rate and significance only to what we see in infancy, Dr. Petersen agreed. However, so far, at least, we have not been able to document that pubertal changes are linked to moodiness in general, she said. We also need to look at the social factors involved with adolescent mood states. Dr. Petersen underscored this point, as did numerous other speakers and participants at the conference, as a means of cautioning against the tendency