HOW TO PREVENT DEPRESSION RISK AMONG TEENS
If you
wish to shield your kids from depression, driving home the point that
personalities can be changed may help, a study suggests.
A
low-cost, one-time intervention that educates teenagers about the changeable
nature of personality traits may prevent an increase in depressive symptoms,
the findings showed.
"We
were amazed that a brief exposure to the message that people can change -
during a key transition, the first few weeks of high school - could prevent
increases in symptoms of depression," said lead researcher David Scott
Yeager from University of Texas at Austin in the US.
Adolescence
is a challenging transitional period marked by puberty and also changes in
friendship networks and status hierarchy.
Research suggests that many lifelong cases of
major depression emerge during this developmental period.
For the study, researchers conducted a longitudinal intervention study with
about 600 adolescents.
Students were randomly assigned to participate in the treatment
intervention or a similar control activity, though they were not aware of the
group assessment.
A follow-up 9 months later showed that rates of clinically
significant depressive symptoms rose by roughly 39 percent among students in
the control group, in line with previous research on depression in adolescence.
Students who learned about the malleability of personality, on the
other hand, showed no such increase in depressive symptoms, even if they were
bullied.
The data revealed that the intervention specifically affected
depressive symptoms of negative mood, feelings of ineffectiveness and low
self-esteem.
The study appeared in the journal Clinical Psychological
Science.
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