Understanding the Within- and Between-Person Structure of Daily Psychopathology Among Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

Previous investigations on the underlying structure of psychopathology symptoms primarily focused at the between-person level and among adult samples. This study used two independent Canadian samples with month-long daily diary designs to investigate daily psychopathology structure at both within- and between-person level among adolescents (n = 99, 2,132 daily reports) and young adults (n = 313, 6,431 and 4,018 daily reports at each wave). Four mainstream types of psychopathology structure were compared based on a comprehensive set of standards. The results suggest that the general factor of psychopathology (p factor) derived from the higher-order and bifactor models performed similarly well at both within- and between-person levels, while the specific factors estimated in the bifactor models demonstrated low reliability and consistency over time. Psychopathology manifests as multidimensional at the within-person level but unidimensional at the between-person level. The current findings inform the development of future prevention and intervention programs by supporting the adoption of transdiagnostic treatment that addresses multiple psychopathology symptoms with a holistic approach.

Keywords: bifactor model; daily diary; hierarchical model; p factor; psychopathology.

Figure 1.

Examples of Alternative Structures/Models of Daily Psychopathology Among University Students.

Figure 2.

Standardized Standard Errors of Factor Loadings for Within (Top) and Between (Bottom) Levels Among University Students (Wave 1) Using the Bayes Estimator.