The Role of Pubertal Progress in the Development of Depression in Early Adolescence

Background: Lack of longitudinal studies on the relationship between pubertal progress and changes in depression during adolescence.

Methods: Changes in the Anxious/Depressed scores of the Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self-Report were predicted from pubertal progress. Subjects were young adolescents from the Dutch general population, aged 10-12 years at T1 and 12-14 years at T2. From the 1327 parent reports, 207 showed a change that exceeded the cut-off for inclusion in the analyses. From the 1414 self-reports, 476 exceeded the cut-off.

Results: Apart from increase, decrease in depression was common. Pubertal progress was inversely related to the parent reports of boys' depression only.

Conclusion: Self-perceptions of depressive symptoms change independently from pubertal progress, whereas changes observable to parents are inversely related to it in boys.

Limitations: Progress was not measured across the whole pubertal development.

Clinical Relevance: One can expect parents to observe a decrease in boys' depression in the period when most pubertal progress is made. More attention should be paid to decreases in depressive symptomatology.