Depression and anxiety among multiethnic middle school students: Age, gender, and sociocultural environment

Background: Depression and anxiety-related disorders are common among adolescents. Research attention to early adolescence and low-income ethnically diverse populations is limited. Aim: To conduct screening for depression and anxiety at an early age with attention to gender and socioenvironmental co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	International journal of social psychiatry Vol. 69; no. 3; pp. 784 - 794
Main Authors:	Jenkins, Janis H, Sanchez, Giselle, Miller, Eric A, Santillanes Allande, Nadia Irina, Urano, Grace, Pryor, Alexandra J
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London, England SAGE Publications 01-05-2023 Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:	Adolescent Adolescent girls Adolescents Age Anxiety Anxiety - diagnosis Anxiety - epidemiology Anxiety disorders Anxiety Disorders - diagnosis Attention Child development COVID-19 Depression - diagnosis Depression - epidemiology Discrimination Economic factors Economic hardship Employment discrimination Ethnography Female Gender Gender-based violence Generalized anxiety disorder Girls Humans Interviews Low income groups Male Medical screening Mental depression Middle school students Middle schools Mixed methods research Multiculturalism & pluralism Original Perceptions Racism School violence Scores Sociocultural factors Stress Students Tests Unemployment COVID-19 anxiety gender ethnographic mixed methods depression Adolescents global mental health
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Summary:	Background: Depression and anxiety-related disorders are common among adolescents. Research attention to early adolescence and low-income ethnically diverse populations is limited. Aim: To conduct screening for depression and anxiety at an early age with attention to gender and socioenvironmental context within a low-income setting. Method: Mixed methods included the PHQ-9A and GAD-10 screening instruments and ethnographic interviews. Results: 75 ethnically diverse middle school students were included. Mean years age was 11.2 (0.74). Females had higher PHQ-9A sum scores than males (p = .002, Mann-Whitney test) and higher GAD-10 sum scores than males (p = .016, Mann-Whitney test). After controlling for multiple comparisons, girls had higher mean responses on three PHQ-9A items (p < .006, two-sided t-test) and only one GAD-10 item (p < .005, two-sided t-test). Ethnographic interviews revealed contexts associated with girls’ experiences of depression and anxiety, including gender-based violence in both school and home environments. Salient for girls and boys alike were worries about consequences of COVID-19 for family with respect to illness, death, job loss, economic hardship. Fears over student perceptions of intensified discrimination and racism in school and community were prominent. These problems were experienced by students as barriers to educational engagement. Conclusion: Specific attention to early adolescence is needed to identify emergence of subsyndromal conditions which may benefit from therapeutic attention to reduce symptom severity, identify sociocultural, structural, and gender-specific stressors, and to enhance educational engagement.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0020-7640 1741-2854 1741-2854
DOI:	10.1177/00207640221140282