Cargando…

Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change

BACKGROUND: Only few studies have focused on the effects of positive life changes on depression, and the ones that did demonstrated inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to obtain a better understanding of the influence of positive life changes on depressive symptoms by decomposing...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bennik, Elise C, Ormel, Johan, Oldehinkel, Albertine J
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270027/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566366
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2050-7283-1-14
_version_ 1782349433582649344
author Bennik, Elise C
Ormel, Johan
Oldehinkel, Albertine J
author_facet Bennik, Elise C
Ormel, Johan
Oldehinkel, Albertine J
author_sort Bennik, Elise C
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Only few studies have focused on the effects of positive life changes on depression, and the ones that did demonstrated inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to obtain a better understanding of the influence of positive life changes on depressive symptoms by decomposing life changes into a valence and an amount of change component. METHODS: Using hierarchical multiple regression, we examined the unique effects of valence (pleasantness/unpleasantness) and amount of change on depressive symptoms in 2230 adolescents (M(age): 16.28 years) from the TRAILS study. RESULTS: Adjusted for age, gender and pre-event depressive symptoms, the amount of life change was positively associated with depressive symptoms. A small excess of positive life changes predicted fewer symptoms, but experiencing a large excess of positive life changes did not have any additional beneficial effects, rather the opposite. Valence was more strongly associated with cognitive-affective than with neurovegetative-somatic symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: More positive life changes relative to negative life changes can protect against depressive symptoms, yet only when the amount of change is limited. This study encourages examination of the effects of life changes on specific symptom clusters instead of total numbers of depressive symptoms, which is the current standard.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4270027
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-42700272015-01-06 Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change Bennik, Elise C Ormel, Johan Oldehinkel, Albertine J BMC Psychol Research Article BACKGROUND: Only few studies have focused on the effects of positive life changes on depression, and the ones that did demonstrated inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to obtain a better understanding of the influence of positive life changes on depressive symptoms by decomposing life changes into a valence and an amount of change component. METHODS: Using hierarchical multiple regression, we examined the unique effects of valence (pleasantness/unpleasantness) and amount of change on depressive symptoms in 2230 adolescents (M(age): 16.28 years) from the TRAILS study. RESULTS: Adjusted for age, gender and pre-event depressive symptoms, the amount of life change was positively associated with depressive symptoms. A small excess of positive life changes predicted fewer symptoms, but experiencing a large excess of positive life changes did not have any additional beneficial effects, rather the opposite. Valence was more strongly associated with cognitive-affective than with neurovegetative-somatic symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: More positive life changes relative to negative life changes can protect against depressive symptoms, yet only when the amount of change is limited. This study encourages examination of the effects of life changes on specific symptom clusters instead of total numbers of depressive symptoms, which is the current standard. BioMed Central 2013-08-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4270027/ /pubmed/25566366 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2050-7283-1-14 Text en © Bennik et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bennik, Elise C
Ormel, Johan
Oldehinkel, Albertine J
Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title_full Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title_fullStr Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title_full_unstemmed Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title_short Life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
title_sort life changes and depressive symptoms: the effects of valence and amount of change
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270027/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566366
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2050-7283-1-14
work_keys_str_mv AT bennikelisec lifechangesanddepressivesymptomstheeffectsofvalenceandamountofchange
AT ormeljohan lifechangesanddepressivesymptomstheeffectsofvalenceandamountofchange
AT oldehinkelalbertinej lifechangesanddepressivesymptomstheeffectsofvalenceandamountofchange