Anxiety and Depressive Symptom Trajectories in Adolescence and the Co-Occurring Development of Cognitive Biases: Evidence from the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study.

Anxiety and Depressive Symptom Trajectories in Adolescence and the Co-Occurring Development of Cognitive Biases: Evidence from the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2020 Sep 14;: Authors: Songco A, Booth C, Spiegler O, Parsons S, Fox E Abstract The development of negative cognitive biases, together with symptoms of anxiety and depression, has yet to be investigated longitudinally. Using a three-wave design, the present study examined developmental trajectories of anxiety and depressive symptoms and the co-occurrence of cognitive biases, in a large normative sample of adolescents (N = 504). Data was drawn from the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study (CogBIAS-L-S), which assessed a wide range of psychological variables, including cognitive biases and self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms, when adolescents were approximately 13, 14.5, and 16 years of age. The results showed that overall levels of anxiety were low and stable, while levels of depression were low but increased slightly at each wave. Growth mixture modeling identified four distinct developmental classes with regard to anxiety and depressive symptoms. Multiple group analysis further showed that class membership was related to the development of cognitive biases. The majority of the sample (75%) was characterised by 'Low symptoms' of anxiety and depression and showed low interpretation and memory biases for negative stimuli at each wave. A second class (...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: J Abnorm Child Psychol Source Type: research