Childhood Adversity, Timing of Puberty and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Study in Taiwan

Abstract

Childhood adversity contributes to depressive symptoms in adolescence, but far less research has focused on an Asian context. This study aims to identify the long-term impact of childhood adversity on adolescents' depressive symptoms and whether this association is moderated by gender and early pubertal timing in Taiwan. Data in this study are from the Taiwan Education Panel Survey, a longitudinal study that surveyed and followed 4261 junior high school students in year 2001 (at age 13) and three more waves (at ages 15, 17, and 18). Conditional latent growth model results show that having adversity is positively associated with the intercept, but negatively associated with the linear trend of changes of depressive symptoms in adolescence (p < .01). Early pubertal timing is only positively associated with baseline levels for boys (p < .01). Both adversity and early pubertal timing contributes to depressive symptoms when adolescents start junior high school.

Keywords: Adolescence; Childhood adversity; Depressive symptoms; Longitudinal study; Pubertal timing.