Date of Award

1-1-2014

Language

English

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Program

Psychology (Masters)

Content Description

1 online resource (iii, 75 pages) : illustrations.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Hazel M Prelow

Committee Members

Elana B Gordis

Keywords

adolescence, depression, family violence, latent class analysis, PTSD, Post-traumatic stress disorder in adolescence, Depression in adolescence, Loneliness in adolescence

Subject Categories

Clinical Psychology | Psychology

Abstract

This study examines how posttraumatic stress (PTS) and depressive symptoms co-occur during early adolescence. Data for participants in the present study were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. A latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted on the data from 818 adolescents aged 11 to 14 who self-identified as Black, Latino, or White. A three-class solution was selected as an optimal fit for the data based on fit indices and ease of interpretation. The LPA indicated that PTS and depressive symptoms tended to co-occur in a dimensional manner, with the classes differing only in terms of the severity level of symptoms endorsed. No unique PTS or depression classes were supported. The three classes were thus named as minimal distress, moderate distress, and severe distress. Risk and protective factors associated with membership to each latent class were assessed using multinomial logistic regression. Gender and relational factors had the strongest associations with latent class membership. These results suggest that categorical measures of PTS and depression do not accurately represent how these constructs occur in early adolescence. In addition, several important factors are associated with severity of PTS and depressive symptoms and could be used to target interventions.

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