Exploring the symptomatic character and change patterns of depression among college students: insights from a longitudinal study

Depression, as a common mental disorder, has a high prevalence rate among college students and seriously influences their quality of life and social function. Yet, studies that explored the symptomatic character and changing patterns of depression across different trajectories among college students are still limited. A total of 2,103 participants (females = 1,117, 52.44%, Mean age = 18.55) completed two measurement waves. Symptoms of depression were measured using the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), and a cut-off of 8 was adopted to depict changes across two waves. Symptom networks and cross-lagged panel networks were established to identify the symptomatic characteristics and the longitudinal interactions between symptoms of depression across distinct trajectories. Four diverse trajectories of depression were depicted, namely persistent-high group ( N = 94(4.93%)), alleviated group ( N = 134(7.04%)), persistent-low group ( N = 1650(86.71%)) and deteriorated group ( N = 225(11.82%)). “Sad mood” is found to be the common central symptom across distinct trajectories. Notably, “anhedonia” and “sleep” are the triggering symptoms for the persistent-high and deteriorated groups, respectively. The current study found that a consistent low mood state warrants more attention for its role in indicating depression. Moreover, anhedonia and sleep problems could serve as the intervening target and prevention target symptoms for people constantly showing depression symptoms, respectively.