TY - JOUR
T1 - Age-varying associations between substance use behaviors and depressive symptoms during adolescence and young adulthood
AU - Schuler, Megan S.
AU - Vasilenko, Sara A.
AU - Lanza, Stephanie T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Development of this article was funded by awards P50DA010075 and T32DA017629 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and award R01 CA168676 from the National Cancer Institute . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Cancer Institute, or the National Institutes of Health. This study's funding source had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.
Funding Information:
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website ( http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth ). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Background: Substance use and depression often co-occur, complicating treatment of both substance use and depression. Despite research documenting age-related trends in both substance use and depression, little research has examined how the associations between substance use behaviors and depression changes across the lifespan. Methods: This study examines how the associations between substance use behaviors (daily smoking, regular heavy episodic drinking (HED), and marijuana use) and depressive symptoms vary from adolescence into young adulthood (ages 12-31), and how these associations differ by gender. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we implemented time-varying effect models (TVEM), an analytic approach that estimates how the associations between predictors (e.g., substance use measures) and an outcome (e.g., depressive symptoms) vary across age. Results: Marijuana use and daily smoking were significantly associated with depressive symptoms at most ages from 12 to 31. Regular HED was significantly associated with depressive symptoms during adolescence only. In bivariate analyses, the association with depressive symptoms for each substance use behavior was significantly stronger for females at certain ages; when adjusting for concurrent substance use in a multivariate analysis, no gender differences were observed. Conclusions: While the associations between depressive symptoms and both marijuana and daily smoking were relatively stable across ages 12-31, regular HED was only significantly associated with depressive symptoms during adolescence. Understanding age and gender trends in these associations can help tailor prevention efforts and joint treatment methods in order to maximize public health benefit.
AB - Background: Substance use and depression often co-occur, complicating treatment of both substance use and depression. Despite research documenting age-related trends in both substance use and depression, little research has examined how the associations between substance use behaviors and depression changes across the lifespan. Methods: This study examines how the associations between substance use behaviors (daily smoking, regular heavy episodic drinking (HED), and marijuana use) and depressive symptoms vary from adolescence into young adulthood (ages 12-31), and how these associations differ by gender. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we implemented time-varying effect models (TVEM), an analytic approach that estimates how the associations between predictors (e.g., substance use measures) and an outcome (e.g., depressive symptoms) vary across age. Results: Marijuana use and daily smoking were significantly associated with depressive symptoms at most ages from 12 to 31. Regular HED was significantly associated with depressive symptoms during adolescence only. In bivariate analyses, the association with depressive symptoms for each substance use behavior was significantly stronger for females at certain ages; when adjusting for concurrent substance use in a multivariate analysis, no gender differences were observed. Conclusions: While the associations between depressive symptoms and both marijuana and daily smoking were relatively stable across ages 12-31, regular HED was only significantly associated with depressive symptoms during adolescence. Understanding age and gender trends in these associations can help tailor prevention efforts and joint treatment methods in order to maximize public health benefit.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.10.005
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.10.005
M3 - Article
C2 - 26483358
AN - SCOPUS:84951838975
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 157
SP - 75
EP - 82
JO - Drug and alcohol dependence
JF - Drug and alcohol dependence
ER -
