A 10-year prospective-longitudinal study of daily hassles and incident psychopathology among adolescents and young adults: interactions with gender, perceived coping efficacy, and negative life events

Abstract

Purpose: To prospectively examine whether higher daily hassles predict a variety of incident mental disorders and respective associations vary by gender, age, perceived coping efficacy and number of negative life events.

Methods: Data comes from the Early Developmental Stages of Psychopathology Study (EDSP), a prospective-longitudinal study among adolescents and young adults from the community (n = 2797, aged 14-24 at baseline) followed up in up to 3 assessment waves over 10 years. Mental disorders were assessed at each wave using the DSM-IV/M-CIDI. Daily hassles, perceived coping efficacy, and negative life events were assessed at baseline using the Daily Hassles Scale, Scale for Self-Control and Coping Skills, and Munich Life Event List.

Results: In logistic regressions adjusted for gender, age, other mental disorders, perceived coping efficacy and number of negative life events at baseline, higher daily hassles at baseline predicted the incidence of any anxiety disorder, specific phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, any affective disorder, and major depressive episodes at follow-up (OR 1.2-1.9 per standard deviation). Daily hassles interacted with perceived coping efficacy at baseline in predicting incident panic attacks (OR 1.3) and panic disorder (OR 1.3) at follow-up, i.e., higher daily hassles only predicted incident panic pathology among individuals with low perceived coping efficacy (OR 1.6-2.0) but not high perceived coping efficacy. Moreover, the associations between daily hassles and incident mental disorders partially varied by gender and age but not by negative life events at baseline.

Conclusions: Targeted stress management interventions among individuals with increased daily hassles might be useful to prevent the onset of anxiety and affective disorders.

Keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Epidemiology; Stress; Substance use.