Stress and psychopathology in children and adolescents: is there evidence of specificity?

McMahon, Susan D.; Grant, Kathryn E.; Compas, Bruce E.; Thurm, Audrey; Ey, Sydney

doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00105

Cited by 305 publications

(205 citation statements)

References 170 publications

(205 reference statements)

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“…Specificity hypotheses posit life events involving separation with internalizing symptoms and life events involving conflict with externalizing symptoms [26]. As shown in the Tables 3 and 5 only two out of 17 life events and two out of six family-change-factors were associated with significantly increased CBCL scores.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Studies of stressful life events as risk factor for child mental health have often focussed on the specificity of either the stressor or the outcome [18,26]. The most complex model, the stressor-outcome specific model, simultaneously tests the hypotheses that particular stressful events predict particular psychiatric symptoms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Next to specificity, studies of life events and developmental psychopathology also consider models, wherein many different stressors can lead to the same outcome (equifinality), and similar stressors lead to multiple outcomes (multifinality) [7]. The results of a comprehensive review on the association between life events and psychiatric symptoms provided some evidence of equifinality and multifinality [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of life events on child mental health before school entry at age six

Fürniss

Beyer

Müller

2009

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

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The study examined the association between life events and early child mental health prior to school entry. The impact of single life events and the cumulative effect of multiple life events on child mental health were examined. In a northern German city, the complete 1-year intake of preschool children at the primary school entry assessment was included. In 1,887 children, life events and psychiatric symptoms were recorded by means of standardized parent questionnaires. Included were all life events between child's birth and school entry. For more than 80 percent of all children, at least one life event was reported. The number of life events was independent of any demographic variable; the mean was 2.2. The number of life events had a highly significant effect on the prevalence of child mental health problems. Six family-change-factors, especially coherent in content, could be identified by factor analysis. The study provides important data on the epidemiology and clinical impact of life events and psychopathology in early childhood. For child mental health, the cumulative effect of multiple life events was found to be much more important than the effect of specific single life events.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of life events on child mental health before school entry at age six

Fürniss

Beyer

Müller

2009

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

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“…Given the lack of specificity between stressors and psychopathological outcomes (McMahon et al, 2003), one may hypothesize that gene-stressor interactions account for outcome specificity. Therefore, psychopathological constructs reflecting gene-environment interactions might be among the most specific and most useful endophenotypes for major depression.…”

Section: Increased Stress Sensitivity (Gender Specific)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Discovering Endophenotypes for Major Depression

Hasler

Drevets

Manji

et al. 2004

Neuropsychopharmacol

1,022

739

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The limited success of genetic studies of major depression has raised questions concerning the definition of genetically relevant phenotypes. This paper presents strategies to improve the phenotypic definition of major depression by proposing endophenotypes at two levels: First, dissecting the depressive phenotype into key components results in narrow definitions of putative psychopathological endophenotypes: mood bias toward negative emotions, impaired reward function, impaired learning and memory, neurovegetative signs, impaired diurnal variation, impaired executive cognitive function, psychomotor change, and increased stress sensitivity. A review of the recent literature on neurobiological and genetic findings associated with these components is given. Second, the most consistent heritable biological markers of major depression are proposed as biological endophenotypes for genetic studies: REM sleep abnormalities, functional and structural brain abnormalities, dysfunctions in serotonergic, catecholaminergic, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, and CRH systems, and intracellular signal transduction endophenotypes. The associations among the psychopathological and biological endophenotypes are discussed with respect to specificity, temporal stability, heritability, familiality, and clinical and biological plausibility. Finally, the case is made for the development of a new classification system in order to reduce the heterogeneity of depression representing a major impediment to elucidating the genetic and neurobiological basis of this common, severe, and often life-threatening illness.

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“…Consistent with this notion, prospective research has found that a negative attributional style interacts with stressors to predict future increases in depressive symptoms and disorder among youth (e.g., Abela 2001;Dixon and Ahrens 1992;Lewinsohn et al 2001;Hilsman and Garber 1995;Robinson et al 1995;see Lakdawalla et al 2007, for a review). Negative events are broadly associated with anxiety, depression, and externalizing problems (McMahon et al 2003). …”

Section: Hopelessness Theory Of Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Vulnerability–Stress Model of Depression During Adolescence: Investigating Depressive Symptom Specificity in a Multi-Wave Prospective Study

Hankin

2008

J Abnorm Child Psychol

129

110

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Depression commonly co-occurs with anxiety and externalizing problems. Etiological factors from a central cognitive theory of depression, the Hopelessness Theory (Abramson et al. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372, 1989), were examined to evaluate whether a negative inferential style about cause, consequence, and self interacted with stressors over time to predict prospective elevations in depressive symptoms specifically compared with typically co-occurring symptoms. Negative inferential style was assessed at baseline in a sample of early and middle adolescents (N=350, sixth to tenth graders). Measures of general depressive, anhedonic depressive, anxious arousal, general internalizing, and externalizing symptoms and occurrence of stressors were assessed at four time points over a 5-month period. Results using hierarchical linear modeling show that a negative inferential style interacted with negative events to predict prospective symptoms of general and anhedonic depression specifically but not anxious arousal, general internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Negative events predicted prospective elevations of symptoms of anxious arousal, internalizing, and externalizing problems.

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Stress and psychopathology in children and adolescents: is there evidence of specificity?

Cited by 305 publications

References 170 publications

Impact of life events on child mental health before school entry at age six

Impact of life events on child mental health before school entry at age six

Discovering Endophenotypes for Major Depression

Cognitive Vulnerability–Stress Model of Depression During Adolescence: Investigating Depressive Symptom Specificity in a Multi-Wave Prospective Study

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