Stressful life events and trajectories of depression symptoms in a U.S. military cohort. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Depression is a common mental disorder that may comprise distinct, underlying symptom patterns over time. Associations between stressful life events throughout the civilian lifecourse-including during childhood-and adult depression have been documented in many populations, but are less commonly assessed in military samples. We identified different trajectories of depression symptoms across four years in a military cohort using latent class growth analysis, and investigated the relationship between these trajectories and two domains of civilian life experiences: childhood adversity (e.g., being mistreated during childhood) and more proximal stressful experiences (e.g., divorce). A four-group depression model was identified, including a symptom-free group (62%), an increasing symptom group (13%), a decreasing symptom group (16%), and a "chronic" symptom group (9%). Compared to the symptom-free group, soldiers with childhood adversity were more likely to be in the chronic depression, decreasing, and increasing symptom groups. Time-varying adult stressors had the largest effect on depression symptoms for the increasing symptom group compared to other groups, particularly in the last two years of follow-up. This study indicates the importance of considering events from throughout the lifecourse-not only those from deployment-when studying the mental health of servicemembers.

published proceedings

  • Sci Rep

altmetric score

  • 3.35

author list (cited authors)

  • Sampson, L., Cabral, H. J., Rosellini, A. J., Gradus, J. L., Cohen, G. H., Fink, D. S., ... Galea, S.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Sampson, Laura||Cabral, Howard J||Rosellini, Anthony J||Gradus, Jaimie L||Cohen, Gregory H||Fink, David S||King, Anthony P||Liberzon, Israel||Galea, Sandro

publication date

  • June 2022