Latent structure of negative valence measures in childhood
Background Internalizing disorders (IDs), consisting of the syndromes of anxiety and depression, are common, debilitating conditions often having onsets in adolescence. Scientists have developed dimensional self‐report instruments that assess putative negative valence system (NVS) trait‐like constru...
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Published in | Depression and anxiety Vol. 34; no. 8; pp. 742 - 751 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Hindawi Limited
01.08.2017
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Background
Internalizing disorders (IDs), consisting of the syndromes of anxiety and depression, are common, debilitating conditions often having onsets in adolescence. Scientists have developed dimensional self‐report instruments that assess putative negative valence system (NVS) trait‐like constructs as complimentary phenotypes to clinical symptoms. These include various measures that index temperamental predispositions to IDs and correlate with neural substrates of fear, anxiety, and affective regulation. This study sought to elucidate the overarching structure of putative NVS traits and their relationship to early manifestations of ID symptomatology.
Methods
The sample consisted of 768 juvenile twin subjects ages 9–13. Together with ID symptoms, extant validated instruments were chosen to assess a broad spectrum of NVS traits: anxiety sensitivity, irritability, fearfulness, behavioral activation and inhibition, and neuroticism and extraversion. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA/CFA) were used to investigate the latent structure of the associations among these different constructs and ID symptoms. Bifactor modeling in addition to standard correlated‐factor analytic approaches were applied.
Results
Factor analyses produced a primary tripartite solution comprising anxiety/fear, dysphoria, and positive affect among all these measures. Competing DSM‐like correlated factors and an RDoC‐like NVS bifactor structure provided similar fit to these data.
Conclusions
Our findings support the conceptual organization of a tripartite latent internalizing domain in developing children. This structure includes both clinical symptoms and a variety of self‐report dimensional traits currently in use by investigators. These various constructs are, therefore, most informatively investigated using an inclusive, integrated approach. |
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Bibliography: | Preliminary results from this study were presented at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Conference, April 2016, Philadelphia, PA, USA. This study was performed at the two institutions listed above. Grant sponsor: National Institutes of Health; Contract grant numbers: R01MH098055 and NIMH‐IRP‐ziamh002781, and UL1TR000058; Grant sponsor: National Institute of Mental Health; Contract grant numbers: R01MH098055. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1091-4269 1520-6394 |
DOI: | 10.1002/da.22656 |