Residential background as a vulnerability factor for adolescent anxiety in China: A multiwave longitudinal study.

Abstract

This multiwave longitudinal study examined the effects of stressful life events on anxiety symptoms and their dimensions among adolescents, as well as the impact of urban and rural residential backgrounds on their development. The participants were 1,027 adolescents from two independent samples in Hunan Province, China. During the initial assessment, adolescents from urban and rural areas completed standardized assessments of anxiety and its dimensions and stressful life events. They completed the same assessments monthly for 6 consecutive months following the initial assessment. Hierarchical linear model analysis was undertaken to examine the relationships between the variables. Results revealed that stressful life events were predictive of different anxiety symptoms in adolescents. Notably, the impact of stressful life events on separation/panic was significantly greater for rural-dwelling than for urban-dwelling adolescents ( p < .001). The results of the present study provide partial support for the vulnerability-stress model in adolescents. More specifically, the results of the study partially support the hypothesis that urbanrural residential background is a vulnerability factor in the separation/panic dimensions but not in the physical symptoms, harm avoidance, or social anxiety dimensions of anxiety following negative stress in Chinese adolescents.