Psychological Reports, 1992, 71, 183-186.

O Psychological Reports

1992

STRESS, HEALTH-RELATED BEHAVIOR AND QUALITY O F LIFE O N DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY I N A SAMPLE OF ADOLESCENTS WESLEY E . HAWKINS

MICHELE J. HAWKINS

University of Oregon

National Catholic School of Social Service JOHN SEELEY

Oregon Research Instzfute Summary.-This scudy examined the correlations of 21 variables categorized into sociodemographic, subjective quality of life, stress, problem behavior, and health behavior predictors of at-risk and low-risk depressive symptomatology for a sample of 1056 adolescents attending public school. Discriminant function analysis showed lower life satisfaction, higher stress, and perceived unattractiveness as major discriminating variables for at-risk (CES-Depression score>23) versus low-risk depressed adolescents. Only two problem behaviors were significant, smoking for girls and hard drug use for boys.

Within the last decade, much research has been conducted on adolescents' depression. Much of this research has focused on psychosocial constructs such as stress (e.g., Siege1 & Brown, 1988), cognitive style (e.g., Beck, 19761, social support (e.g., Andrews & Brown, 1988), and social and coping skills (e.g., Nezu & Ronan, 1988). Few studies have been conducted, however, on the relations of health-related behavior and subjective quality-of-life measures to depressive s y m p t o m a t ~ l o g ~Although . the association of several problem behaviors (smoking, alcohol, and hard drugs) with depressive syrnptomatology has been well documented in the literature (Aneshensel & Huba, 1989; Buckner & Mandel, 1990; Deykin, Levy, & WeUs, 1987; Parker, Parker, Harford, & Farmer, 1987; Kellam, Brown, Rubin, & Ensrninger, 1983; Covey & Tam, 1990; Kandel & Davies, 1986), few researchers have examined the combined effects of health practices with other subjective health measures on depressive ~ymptomatolog~. The purpose of this study, then, was to examine the relation of health-related behavior, stress, and selected measures of subjective quality-of-life in a sample of 1056 adolescents. METHOD The sample of 1056 adolescents attended a public high school in the Pacific Northwest. Approximately 88% of the total student population of 1200

'Address corres ondence to Wesley E. Hawkins, now at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene ant! Public Health, Department of Mental Hygiene, 624 North Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205.

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W. E. HAWKINS, ETAL.

students were surveyed. More than half the sample were girls (n = 568, 53%) while boys represented 47% (n = 504). Thirty-nine percent (n = 412) were sophomores, 32% (n = 345) were juniors, and 28% (n = 322) were seniors. The majority of the sample were white (90%), while 10% were nonwhite. The majority of respondents ( 7 5 % , n = 820) Lved with two parents, and most fathers (87%) were employed as were the mothers (73%, n = 785). Surveys were administered in a paper-and-pencil format to respondents during the regular academic day. Major instruments used were The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale CES-D (Radloff, 1977), a modified version of the Health Behavior Index (Jessor, Donovan, & Costa, 1991), and a modified version of the Schedule of Recent Experiences scale (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). I n the need for brevity, abbreviated measures were developed for subjective measures of self-reported health, life satisfaction, perceived education level, and perceived attractiveness. RESULTSAND DISCUSSION The first set of variables, sociodemographic or control variables, were entered first in the discriminant function to control for confounding. The remaining categories of variables, quality-of-life measures, health-enhancing behaviors, and problem behaviors, were then entered in setwise fashion. For girls, the first discriminant function was significant (X2,2= 278.07, p < 0.001), accounting for 43% of the variance. Using a cut-off criterion of .30 and above for pooled within-groups correlations (Table I), six variables were considered significant: lower life satisfaction, higher stress, perceived unattractiveness, lower reported health, smoking cigarettes, and less likely to exercise. Over-all classification for the grouped cases was 84%. Specificity for the low-risk group was 91.3%, while the sensitivity for the at-risk group was 64.3%. The single discriminant function for boys was significant (x,,' = 189.61, p

Stress, health-related behavior and quality of life on depressive symptomatology in a sample of adolescents.

This study examined the correlations of 21 variables categorized into sociodemographic, subjective quality of life, stress, problem behavior, and heal...
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