Perceived social support as a moderator between negative life events and depression in adolescence: implications for prediction and targeted prevention

Abstract

Aim and background: The role of the perceived social support in prevention of depression in adolescence still remains an insufficiently explored problem. By integrating the results of the previous studies of moderator role of perceived social support between negative life events and depression in adolescence we set up two goals. One is to determine whether perceived social support has moderator role in the sample consisted of clinical, subclinical, and control respondents. Another goal is to identify in which group the interaction effect is significant, i.e. the perceived social support acts as moderator.

Methods: The sample consisted of 412 adolescents (61.7% female and 38.3% male) aged 13-17 years (mean = 15.70, SD = 1.22). We applied: Data sheet for all respondents; Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview; Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support; Adolescent Life Events Questionnaire; Centre for Epidemiological Depression Scale.

Results: We have shown that the association between levels of depressive symptoms and negative life events changes as the value of the moderator variable perceived social support changes. The finding that the moderating interaction effect was significant only in the subclinical group is particularly interesting.

Conclusions: Taking into account that perceived social support moderates the association between negative stress events and levels of depression, we can propose a model for the prevention of depression, which will include perceived social support. However, future research with longitudinal design is required to verify the results.

Keywords: Adolescence; Depression; Moderator role; Negative life events; Perceived social support; Prediction; Prevention.