Association between depressive symptom trajectories and unhealthy lifestyle factors among adolescents based on the China family panel studies.

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of depressive symptom in adolescents has sharply increased over the past decade. Depressive symptom during adolescence could hinder the development of social, cognitive, and psychological competencies, potentially influencing young adults' lifestyle factors. This study aimed to identify trajectories of depressive symptom from adolescence to early adulthood and evaluated their association with lifestyle factors in early adulthood.

METHODS

Data was collected from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was assessed during the 2016, 2018, and 2020. Group - based trajectory modeling was used to identify trajectories of depressive symptom over a 5 - year follow - up. We used binary logistic regression analyze to explore the relationship between depressive symptom trajectories and lifestyle factors.

RESULTS

We identified four trajectories of depressive symptom, characterized by maintained low scores (non - symptom); moderately high scores (moderately high symptom); consistently high scores (persistently high symptom); and low starting scores that steadily increased (increasing symptom). After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the ORs for smoking were 2.95 (1.47, 5.97) for the "persistently high symptom" trajectory comparing to the "non - symptom" trajectory.

CONCLUSION

The depressive symptom trajectories was associated with unhealthy lifestyle factors. Future studies are needed to determine whether depressive symptom might serve as early indicators prompting adolescents to make psychological changes that could reduce the risk of unhealthy lifestyle factors in the later life.