Longitudinal associations between social anxiety, depressive symptoms and peer victimization in adolescence : A prospective community study

• Self-reported social anxiety, depressive symptoms and peer victimization was investigated in 350 students in grade 7 and then in grade 8, 9 and 11. Using latent growth modeling, social anxiety was found to be stable over time and to have a time-invariant association with depressive symptoms. Further, social anxiety predicted subsequent depressive symptoms but not vice versa. Support was found for a meditational model. That is, peer victimization in grade 7 was related to higher level of social anxiety, which in turn was associated with more depressive symptoms in grade 8, 9 and 11. The development of social anxiety and depression symptomatology among adolescents can thus be described as one sequential longitudinal process initiated by peer victimization.

Keyword

Social anxiety

adolescents

developmental course

depressive symptoms

peer victimization

latent growth modeling

MEDICINE

MEDICIN

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)