Internalizing disorders and quality of life in adolescence: evidence for independent associations

• Published in: Revista brasileira de psiquiatria Vol. 36; no. 4; pp. 305 - 312
• Main Authors: Salum, Giovanni A, DeSousa, Diogo A, Bosa, Vera L, Schuch, Ilaine, Goldani, Marcelo, Isolan, Luciano R, Teche, Stefania P, Fleck, Marcelo P, Rohde, Luis A, Manfro, Gisele G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brazil Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria 01.10.2014; Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria (ABP)
• Subjects: Adolescent; adolescents; anxiety; Anxiety Disorders - etiology; Anxiety Disorders - physiopathology; Anxiety Disorders - psychology; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; depression; Depressive Disorder - etiology; Depressive Disorder - physiopathology; Depressive Disorder - psychology; Feeding Behavior; Female; Humans; Life Change Events; Male; Models, Psychological; Predictive Value of Tests; PSYCHIATRY; Quality of life; Quality of Life - psychology; Regression Analysis; Risk Factors; Self-Assessment; Social Environment; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult; anxiety; depression; adolescents; Quality of life
• ISSN: 1516-4446; 1809-452X; 1809-452X
• DOI: 10.1590/1516-4446-2014-1362

To investigate whether internalizing disorders are associated with quality of life (QoL) in adolescents, even after accounting for shared risk factors. The sample comprised 102 adolescents from a community cross-sectional study with an oversampling of anxious subjects. Risk factors previously associated with QoL were assessed and divided into five blocks organized hierarchically from proximal to distal sets of risk factors. Multiple regression analysis yielded a hierarchical model accounting for 72% of QoL variance. All blocks were consistently associated with QoL (p < 0.05), accounting for the following percentages of variance: 12% for demographics; 5.2% for family environment; 37.8% for stressful events; 10% for nutritional and health habits; and 64.2% for dimensional psychopathological symptoms or 22.8% for psychiatric diagnoses (dichotomous). Although most of the QoL variance attributed to internalizing symptoms was explained by the four proximal blocks in the hierarchical model (43.2%), about 21% of the variance was independently associated with internalizing symptoms/diagnoses. QoL is associated with several aspects of adolescent life that were largely predicted by our hierarchical model. Our findings reinforce the hypothesis that internalizing disorders and internalizing symptoms in adolescents have a high impact on QoL and deserve proper clinical attention.