Abstract Background The role of symptom overlap between major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder in comorbidity between two disorders is unclear. The current study applied network ...analysis to map the structure of symptom associations between these disorders. Methods Data comes from a sample of 909 Australian adults with a lifetime history of trauma and depressive symptoms. Data analysis consisted of the construction of two comorbidity networks of PTSD/MDD with and without overlapping symptoms, identification of the bridging symptoms, and computation of the centrality measures. Results The prominent bridging role of four overlapping symptoms (i.e., sleep problems, irritability, concentration problems, and loss of interest) and five non-overlapping symptoms (i.e., feeling sad, feelings of guilt, psychomotor retardation, foreshortened future, and experiencing flashbacks) is highlighted. Limitations The current study uses DSM-IV criteria for PTSD and does not take into consideration significant changes made to PTSD criteria in DSM-5. Moreover, due to cross-sectional nature of the data, network estimates do not provide information on whether a symptom actively triggers other symptoms or whether a symptom mostly is triggered by other symptoms. Conclusion The results support the role of dysphoria-related symptoms in PTSD/MDD comorbidity. Moreover, Identification of central symptoms and bridge symptoms will provide useful targets for interventions that seek to intervene early in the development of comorbidity.
Purpose
Social isolation and low levels of social support are associated with depression. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between depression and social ...connectivity factors (frequency of contact and quality of social connections) in the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being.
Methods
A national survey of 8841 participants aged 16–85 years was conducted. Logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between social connectivity factors and 12-month prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder in the whole sample, as well as across three age groups: younger adults (16–34 years), middle-aged adults (35–54 years), and older adults (55+ years). Respondents indicated how often they were in contact with family members and friends (frequency of contact), and how many family and friends they could rely on and confide in (quality of support), and were assessed for Major Depressive Disorder using the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostics Interview.
Results
Overall, higher social connection quality was more closely and consistently associated with lower odds of the past year depression, relative to frequency of social interaction. The exception to this was for the older group in which fewer than a single friendship interaction each month was associated with a two-fold increased likelihood of the past year depression (OR 2.19, 95% CI 1.14–4.25). Friendship networks were important throughout life, although in middle adulthood, family support was also critically important—those who did not have any family support had more than a three-fold increased odds of the past year depression (OR 3.47, 95% CI 2.07–5.85).
Conclusions
High-quality social connection with friends and family members is associated with reduced likelihood of the past year depression. Intervention studies that target the quality of social support for depression, particularly support from friends, are warranted.
It has been proposed that increased screen time contributes to increasing rates of adolescents abstaining from alcohol use. We argue that this proposition depends on the extent to which a type of ...screen time promotes social norms. We examined whether social norms mediated the association between alcohol use and i) social media, ii) television, and iii) video gaming.
Multilevel models distinguishing between two time-varying factors: between-person effects and within-person effects. We used data from a randomized-controlled trial examining the efficiency of a personality-targeted substance use programme.
3612 adolescents (47% female, mean age = 12.7, SD = 0.5 years) were recruited from 31 schools in the Greater Montreal area.
We estimated the association between three types of screen time (social media, television, and video gaming), alcohol-related social norms, and alcohol use.
Social norms mediated the association between social media use and alcohol use at both the between-person (β = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.11, p = .000) and within-person level (β = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.01, 0.03, p = .000) and association between television use and alcohol use at the within-person level (β = 0.01, 95% CI = −0.004, 0.01, p = .000). Social norms did not mediate the association between video gaming and alcohol use.
Alcohol-related social norms were shown to mediate the association between social media use, both at a correlational and longitudinal level, and the association between alcohol use and television use and alcohol use, at a longitudinal level, which may imply that these promote positive social norms towards alcohol use, subsequently increasing adolescents' drinking behaviour.
•Screen time may promote alcohol use through social norms.•We analysed the association of screen time, social norms, and alcohol use over the course of 4 years.•Social norms mediated the association of social media and television and alcohol use.
Previous longitudinal studies found significant associations between screen time and increase in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, but the mechanisms mediating this ...association remain understudied. Thus, we used data from a 5-year population-based longitudinal cohort of nearly 4000 Canadian high school students, modeled using multivariate multilevel mediation, to investigate the association of screen time (i.e., social media, television, video games, computer use) with ADHD symptoms via different potential behavioral and neuropsychological mediators (i.e. impulsivity, response inhibition, working memory). We studied direct and indirect between-person, concurrent within-person, and lagged-within-person effects of screens on ADHD symptoms. Results showed that increases in screen time in a given year were associated with an exacerbation of ADHD symptoms within that same year (within-person association), over and above potential common vulnerability (between-person association). Impulsivity proved to be the most robust mediator in the association of screen time with ADHD symptoms at both between and within-person levels. Only social media use displayed a significant lagged-within-person association with ADHD symptoms mediated by impulsivity, indicating an enduring influence on behavior, which was further shown to be mediated by chained changes in response inhibition on a Go/No-Go task. These findings provide clinical implications of screen time and should be an important focus in the management and prevention of ADHD symptoms among adolescents.
Visual scanning of faces in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been intensively studied using eye-tracking technology. However, most of studies have relied on the same analytic ...approach based on the quantification of fixation time, which may have failed to reveal some important features of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD. In the present study, we examined the scanning of faces in a group of 20 preschoolers with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers, using both classical fixation time approach and a new developed approach based on transition matrices and network analysis. We found between group differences in the eye region in terms of fixation time, with increased right eye fixation time for the ASD group and increased left eye fixation time for the TD group. Our complementary network approach revealed that the left eye might play the role of an anchor in the scanning strategies of TD children but not in that of children with ASD. In ASD, fixation time on the different facial parts was almost exclusively dependent on exploratory activity. Our study highlights the importance of developing innovative measures that bear the potential of revealing new properties of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD.
Major neurocognitive changes occur during adolescence, making this phase one of the most critical developmental periods of life. Furthermore, this phase in life is also the time in which youth ...substance use begins. Several studies have demonstrated the differential associations of alcohol and cannabis use concerning the neurocognitive functioning of both males and females. Past and contemporary literature on gender-specific effects in neuroscience of addiction is predominantly based on cross-sectional datasets and data that is limited in terms of measurement variability. Given the importance of gender-specific effects in addiction studies, and in order to address the two above-mentioned gaps in the literature, the present study aimed to compare neurocognitive functioning of male and female adolescents in the context of cannabis and alcohol use, while employing a longitudinal design with multiple repeated measurements. Participants were 3,826 high school students (47% female; mean age, 12.7), who were recruited from 31 high schools in the greater Montreal area. Participants were requested to complete annual surveys for five consecutive years, from 7th to 11th grade, assessing their alcohol/cannabis use and neurocognitive functioning (working memory, delayed recall memory, perceptual reasoning, and inhibition control). The analytical strategy focused on the longitudinal association between each predictor (female, male) and each of the outcomes (domains of neurocognitive functioning). Multilevel linear models assessed the association of alcohol and cannabis consumption and the four domains of neurocognitive functioning. Results revealed a gender by within-subject interaction, suggesting a weaker effect of yearly fluctuation of cannabis use on working memory among males compared to females. Our findings suggest a different pattern of neurocognitive impairment of female and male working memory after using cannabis over the course of adolescence. Early initiation of cannabis use potentially results in more spatial working memory deficits in female adolescents. This may negatively influence young females' capacity in academic settings and lead to significant impairment in adulthood, which critically decreases the individual's quality of life.
Bullying victimization is common in adolescence and has been associated with a broad variety of psychopathology and alcohol use. The present study assessed time-varying associations between bullying ...victimization and alcohol use through internalizing and externalizing symptoms and whether this indirect association throughout time is moderated by personality. This 5-year longitudinal study (3,800 grade 7 adolescents) used Bayesian multilevel moderated mediation models: independent variable was bullying victimization; moderators were four personality dimensions (anxiety sensitivity, hopelessness, impulsivity, and sensation seeking); internalizing symptoms (anxiety, depressive symptoms) and externalizing symptoms (conduct, hyperactivity problems) were the mediators; and alcohol use, the outcome. Results indicated significant between, within, and lagged effects on alcohol use through internalizing and externalizing symptoms. There were significant between and within effects on alcohol use through internalizing symptoms for adolescents with high anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness, and significant between, within, and lagged effects on alcohol use through externalizing symptoms for adolescents with high impulsivity and sensation seeking. These findings implicate two risk pathways that account for how bullying victimization enhances alcohol use risk and emphasize the importance of personality profiles that can shape the immediate and long-term consequences of victimization.
Background and aims
The experience of alcohol use among adolescents is complex, with international differences in age of purchase and individual differences in consumption and consequences. This ...latter underlines the importance of prediction modeling of adolescent alcohol use. The current study (a) compared the performance of seven machine‐learning algorithms to predict different levels of alcohol use in mid‐adolescence and (b) used a cross‐cultural cross‐study scheme in the training‐validation‐test process to display the predictive power of the best performing machine‐learning algorithm.
Design
A comparison of seven machine‐learning algorithms: logistic regression, support vector machines, random forest, neural network, lasso regression, ridge regression and elastic‐net.
Setting
Canada and Australia.
Participants
The Canadian sample is part of a 4‐year follow‐up (2012–16) of the Co‐Venture cohort (n = 3826, baseline age 12.8 ± 0.4, 49.2% girls). The Australian sample is part of a 3‐year follow‐up (2012–15) of the Climate Schools and Preventure (CAP) cohort (n = 2190, baseline age 13.3 ± 0.3, 43.7% girls).
Measurements
The algorithms used several prediction indices, such as F1 prediction score, accuracy, precision, recall, negative predictive value and area under the curve (AUC).
Findings
Based on prediction indices, the elastic‐net machine‐learning algorithm showed the best predictive performance in both Canadian (AUC = 0.869 ± 0.066) and Australian (AUC = 0.855 ± 0.072) samples. Domain contribution analysis showed that the highest prediction accuracy indices yielded from models with only psychopathology (AUC = 0.816 ± 0.044/0.790 ± 0.071 in Canada/Australia) and only personality clusters (AUC = 0.776 ± 0.063/0.796 ± 0.066 in Canada/Australia). Similarly, regardless of the level of alcohol use, in both samples, externalizing psychopathologies, alcohol use at baseline and the sensation‐seeking personality profile contributed to the prediction.
Conclusions
Computerized screening software shows promise in predicting the risk of alcohol use among adolescents.
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