Associations between teacher emotional support and depressive symptoms in Australian adolescents: A 5-year longitudinal study.

Abstract

Approximately 1/5 of adolescents develop depressive symptoms. Given that youths spend a good deal of their lives at school, it seems plausible that supportive relationships with teachers could benefit their emotional well-being. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between emotionally supportive teacher relationships and depression in adolescence. The so-called principle-effect and stress-buffer models could explain relationships between teacher emotional support and depressive symptoms, yet no study has used both models to test bidirectional relationships between teacher support and depressive symptoms in students separately by sex. Four-thousand three-hundred forty-one students (boys: n = 2,063; girls: n = 2,278) from Grades 8 to 12 completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), List of Threatening Experiences Questionnaire (LTEQ), and an instrument developed for the study to measure teacher support annually for 5 years. Results support neither of the 2 proposed models. Instead, they indicate that in the 1st years of high school, students of both sexes with average and high numbers of stressful events benefit from teacher support, while teacher support might have iatrogenic effects on students experiencing low numbers of stressful events. Possible explanations for the findings and future research are discussed.

Teacher Support and Mental Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Negative Emotions and Resilience

“…That is, teachers can promote adolescents mental well-being by teaching them how to learn from individual experience, control themselves, ask for help, and regulate their negative emotions, especially depression. A 5-year longitudinal study evidenced that the decreased depression was predicted by increasing teacher support 1 year before (Pössel et al, 2013). In a word, teachers play a crucial role in adolescent healthy development.…”

Protective factors for depressive symptoms in adolescents: Interpersonal relationships and perceived social support

“…Accumulating evidence indicates that depressive symptoms rise dramatically during adolescence (Costello, Mustillo, Erkanli, Keeler, & Angold, ; Dekker et al., ; Hankin et al., ). Adolescent depressive symptoms are closely associated with maladaptive and negative developmental outcomes (Jonsson et al., ; Pössel, Rudasill, Sawyer, Spence, & Bjerg, ). For instance, studies have shown that adolescents’ depressive symptoms are associated with the risk of behavioral and emotional difficulties (e.g., Jonsson et al., ; Pössel et al., ), low self‐esteem, less effective coping, and a higher likelihood of cigarette smoking (Fletcher, ; Prinstein & La Greca, ).…”

Teacher support mediates concurrent and longitudinal associations between temperament and mild depressive symptoms in sixth grade

“…Research shows that growth in perceptions of teacher support among middle school students corresponds to decrements in depressive symptoms (Reddy, Rhodes, & Mulhall, 2003). A recent longitudinal study by Pössel, Rudasill, Sawyer, Spence, and Bjerg (2013) showed reciprocal associations between depressive symptoms and adolescents' perceptions of teacher support across grades 8-12, such that more depressive symptoms predicted lower teacher support and lower teacher support predicted more depressive symptoms.…”