Browsing by Subject "depressive symptoms"
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Cognitive performance in adulthood : the roles of stress-related exhaustion and depressive symptoms (2021)Objective: Both stress-related exhaustion and depression have previously been associated with a decline in cognitive performance, but there is a lack of evidence on whether these conditions have different associations with different cognitive domains and whether they have additive effects on cognitive performance. Furthermore, very little is known about the cognitive effects of chronic stress-related exhaustion. Consequently, the aims of this study were to 1) examine the associations between current stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance, 2) investigate whether different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion are differently associated with cognitive performance, 3) compare the association between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance to the relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive performance, 4) examine if individuals with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression have lower cognitive performance than individuals with at most one of these conditions (i.e., whether clinical stress-related exhaustion and clinical depression might have additive effects on cognitive performance). Methods: The data used in the study was a Finnish population-based sample of six cohorts born between 1962 and 1977 from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Stress-related exhaustion was assessed using the Maastricht Questionnaire, depressive symptoms with the Beck Depression Inventory, and cognitive performance with four subtests of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, measuring visuospatial associative learning, reaction time, sustained attention, and executive functions. Cognitive performance and depressive symptoms were assessed in 2012, and stress-related exhaustion in 2001, 2007, and 2012. Participants were 35 to 50 years old in 2012. Linear associations between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance (N = 905) and depressive symptoms and cognitive performance (N = 904) were examined by conducting multivariate regression analyses. Age, sex, socioeconomic status, and parents’ socioeconomic status were controlled in the regression models. Additionally, multivariate analyses of variance were performed to investigate the different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion and their relation to cognitive performance (N = 541) and the associations of comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression with cognitive performance (N = 1273). Results and conclusion: The main finding was that high stress-related exhaustion is associated with slower reaction times, but not with performance in spatial working memory, visuospatial associative learning, or executive functions. Ongoing, chronic stress-related exhaustion was more strongly associated with slower reaction times than short-term exhaustion experienced years ago. Compared to depressive symptoms, high stress-related exhaustion was associated with slower reaction times also when subclinical cases were included, whereas only clinical levels of depressive symptoms had an association with slower reaction times. There were no differences in cognitive performance between individuals with only stress-related exhaustion or depression and those with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression, which supports the notion that these conditions do not have additive effects on cognitive performance. These findings add to the existing evidence of the cognitive effects of stress-related exhaustion in the general population and have several practical implications. Further research is needed on the topic, preferably with longitudinal designs, more comprehensive cognitive measures, and clinical assessment of the psychiatric symptoms.
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(2023)Adolescent ill-being has in recent years become a prominent health concern globally. Ill-being during adolescence can have negative consequences for future health and wellbeing, as important patterns of health are formed during this time. This highlights the importance of early identification of risk factors and overarching patterns of mental and physical ill-being and arguments for early intervention during adolescence. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors and co-occurrence of subjective ill-being symptoms in the form of depressive symptoms and subjective health complaints. This study also examined whether the subjective ill-being of students was reflected in cortisol patterns in a naturalistic setting. This since stress has been identified as a key etiological factor in ill-being, through the damaging effect of prolonged exposure to elevated cortisol levels. By applying a novel measure of school atmosphere, the study also aimed to examine the potential protective role of the social atmosphere in school on subjective ill-being and cortisol levels. A total of 329 students from eleven Finnish-Swedish upper secondary schools participated in the cross-sectional study by answering a questionnaire. The salivary cortisol samples were collected from a subsample of the participants, with of a total of 209 participant that met the salivary sampling criteria applied in the study. The methodological framework for the statistical analysis of the study consisted of independent samples t-test, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple linear regression. The results showed a higher prevalence of ill-being in girls and second year students. A significant co-occurrence was found for the subjective ill-being measures of depressive symptom and subjective health concerns. The subjective ill-being was however not reflected in the daily cortisol patterns of students in a naturalistic setting. Furthermore, a positive school atmosphere was significantly negatively associated with subjective ill-being of student in the form of depressive symptoms and subjective health complaints. When controlling for covariates, the subjective meaning of school experienced by the students was identified as a significant protective factor against symptoms of ill-being. These findings identify students in need of additional support and highlights the need of applying an overarching view on student ill-being in future adolescent research. Since no associations was found between daily cortisol patterns and subjective ill-being this study contributes to the understanding of HPA axis in early disorder onset. This study also highlights the importance of subjective meaning in a school context and posits increasing the subjective meaning as a prominent strategy to decrease ill-being among Finnish-Swedish upper secondary school students. Further studies are however needed to assess the causality and to examine these relationships further.
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(2015)Studies on the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms form a long research tradition. Numerous studies have indicated that children of depressed mothers face an up to 3-fold risk of exhibiting depressive symptoms later in life compared with those children whose mother has not had depressive symptoms. Later studies have observed that paternal depressive symptoms pose an almost equal risk factor particularly for boys. After having established the association between parental and offspring depressive symptoms, research has focused on exploring the mechanisms underlying the transmission of risk. These are also the principal point of interest in the present thesis that gives particular weight to the role of gender, socioeconomic circumstances (parental education and household income) and timing of exposure, belonging to often-hypothesized but seldom-examined shapers of the transmission of risk. Besides these, the study sheds light on the significance of gender of which previous research has produced mixed results. The interpretation of the results leans on the conceptual framework of life course epidemiology, which understands the development of a disease or a disorder as the outcome of biological, psychosocial, and environmental processes that entangle with each other throughout the life course. The study utilized the register-based EKSY014 data set that contains a 20% random sample of all Finnish households with at least one child aged 0-14 years at the end of 2000. Information on the purchases of prescription medicines and visits to inpatient and outpatient care were used as proxy for the incidence of depressive symptoms. Cox proportional hazards regression model, which belongs to the field of survival analysis, was used to compare the event rates between the groups of interest. Exposure to depression of biological parents was measured when persons were 9-14 years old, and the follow-up of an individual’s own depressive symptoms started on the first day of the year the person turned 15 and ended on the last day of the year the person turned 20. Altogether, the principal study population included more than 130,000 persons born between 1986 and 1996. A smaller sub-sample was used to study the effects of an early-life exposure at age 0-5 years and recurrent parental depressive symptoms. According to the analysis, exposure to maternal depressive symptoms at age 9-14 years poses an equally large 2-fold risk for boys and girls. Paternal depressive symptoms put boys at an equal risk as maternal depressive symptoms, but for girls, they pose a smaller 1.5-fold risk. Among those persons who are living with their biological parents, controlling for the effects of socioeconomic factors weakens the association only little and no differences are seen in the risk of intergenerational transmission across the groups of socioeconomic status. Exposure to both maternal depressive symptoms and paternal depressive symptoms poses a bigger risk than a single exposure among both girls and boys. The analysis conducted with the smaller sub-sample implies that an exposure at age 9-14 years poses a bigger risk than an exposure at age 0-5 years. Recurrent exposure to maternal depressive symptoms appears to be a particularly severe risk factor. The results of the study support the life course epidemiological processes of accumulation of risk and chains of risk: Exposure to depressive symptoms in both parents and the long-term chaining of parental depressive symptoms put the person at the greatest risk. Parental depressive symptoms and socioeconomic status appear as largely independent risk factors of adolescent depressive symptoms; thus, those adolescents having a low socioeconomic status and a history of parental depressive symptoms face a particularly elevated risk of exhibiting depressive symptoms. The preliminary analysis did not give support to the assumed sensitive period in the first years of life, but the question should be examined further with a larger sample. Overall, the results advocate a more holistic approach to the prevention of adolescent depressive symptoms, beginning from the identification of familial risk and leading to actions that target all members of the family.
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(2019)Objective Depression and high blood pressure are becoming more common problems, but their relation remains unclear. This master's thesis studied the relation between depression and high blood pressure in the longitudinal Young Finns Study over a follow-up of four years. The aim was to examine whether 1) baseline depressive symptoms predict blood pressure over the follow-up, 2) the relation between depression and blood pressure differs among men and women, 3) health choices affect the relation, and 4) there is a relation between the duration of depression and blood pressure. Methods The participants (N=909) were about 42 years old, and 61 % of them were women. Their blood pressure and BDI-II depression scores were measured in 2007 ja 2011. Three-step regression analysis was used to predict the systolic and diastolic blood pressure based on the baseline depression score. The first model was controlled for age, gender and baseline blood pressure, the second model also for education and income, and the third model additionally for health choices. The average blood pressures of non-depressed, once depressed and twice depressed participants were compared in analysis of variance. The group comparisons were additionally controlled for age, gender and baseline blood pressure in analysis of covariance. Results and conclusions Baseline depressive symptoms did not predict blood pressure. Among women, a positive relation between depression and blood pressure was found in the first model, but not in the more controlled models. The relation between depression and blood pressure was partly explained by health choices; higher body mass index predicted higher blood pressure. Controlling for age, gender and baseline blood pressure, the duration of depression was connected to higher blood pressure; the diastolic blood pressure was higher, when the participant was depressed both in the beginning and end of the follow-up.
Now showing items 1-4 of 4