Browsing by Author "Liutu, Maiju"

Aims. Mental disorders in adolescence are common, and when left untreated, they can significantly affect the developmental phase of adolescence, impacting development throughout life. Changes in experiencing emotions are typical in mental disorders, however, normal fluctuation of emotions in adolescence may impact the early detection of disorders in young people. Currently there is little research on the connection between temporal fluctuation of emotions and mental disorders in adolescence. This thesis is studying the variation in temporal fluctuation of emotions, mental alertness and self-control in adolescents that have at least one mental disorder, or no mental disorders, as well as the connection between such temporal fluctuations with different mental disorders. In addition, this thesis is studying the connection between the number of simultaneous mental disorders and the intensity of emotions, mental alertness and self-control. Methods. The studied group consisted 342 16–18-year-old adolescents from Helsinki, out of which 69.6% were girls. The data used in the study was part of the second stage of the SleepHelsinki! cohort study by the University of Helsinki. “MINI” interview technique was used for assessing the mental disorders and PsyMate™ application (which is based on the ESM method) was used for assessing the temporal fluctuation of emotions, mental alertness and self-control. The connections were examined with linear mixed models. Results and conclusions. The study did not detect any difference in the observed temporal fluctuation of emotions when comparing the adolescent that had at least one mental disorders with those that did not have any mental disorders. A greater number of detected mental disorders had a connection with weaker joyfulness and satisfaction, more intense depression, anxiety and irritability, as well as better experienced self-control. The number of disorders was not detected to have an affiliation with mental alertness. The study did not detect a systematic connection between temporal fluctuation of emotions and mental disorders, but some reference of connection between certain disorders and temporal fluctuation of emotions was detected. In the future it would be beneficial to study these connections while considering the impact of situational factors into emotions. 40 % of the adolescent observed in this study had at least one current mental disorder. Therefore, the common occurrence of mental disorders in the adolescent indicates the necessity to improve the understanding of the characteristic features of adolescent mental disorders, such as their impact in the changes in emotions.