Dynamic Associations Among Symptoms of Stress, Anxiety, and Depression During the First Year Following Entry into Junior High School: Evidence from a Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model and Network Analysis
Longitudinal study reveals prospective links between anxiety and subsequent stress in junior high students, suggesting anxiety is a key target for adolescent mental health interventions.
Key Points
To examine dynamic longitudinal associations among symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression during the transition into the first year of junior high school.
Assessed 503 students entering junior high school using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) across three assessment waves, each spaced six months apart.
Modeled directional symptom pathways over time using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) alongside sex-stratified network analyses.
Between-person symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression demonstrated strong correlations (r = 0.86 to 0.94), largely loading onto a single general distress factor.
Within-person anxiety exhibited significant autoregressive stability and prospectively predicted elevated stress levels at subsequent time points (p ≤ 0.001).
Network analysis identified breathing difficulty and panic worries as the most influential symptoms in boys, whereas unexplained fear and over-reactivity were most influential in girls.