Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2011 Dec;20(4):194-202. doi: 10.1002/mpr.349. Epub 2011 Oct 18.
The distinctiveness of anxiety and depressive symptoms in children has previously been questioned based on their high degree of comorbidity, shared risk factors, and treatment response. Developing children may show an unstable presentation of anxiety and depressive symptoms that would complicate interpretation of studies of comorbidity. The present study examined the measurement stability of anxiety and depressive symptoms across time and sex using a large epidemiologic sample of children. A nationally representative cohort of 1329 children (624 girls and 705 boys) aged four to seven in 1994 were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Using eight years of prospective data we examined whether a one or two factor structure of anxiety (five items) and depressive (four items) symptoms would be invariant across time and sex. Despite item variability within each factor across time, confirmatory factor analysis revealed distinct factors for anxiety and depression that were stable across time and sex. Results provide support that covariation between anxiety and depression is not likely the result of measurement overlap. However, items indicating factors of anxiety and depression in the NLSY may not be sufficient to permit developmentally-sensitive measurement of these factors.
先前基于焦虑和抑郁症状的高度共病性、共同风险因素和治疗反应，人们对儿童的这些症状的独特性提出了质疑。发展中的儿童可能会表现出焦虑和抑郁症状的不稳定表现，这将使共病研究的解释变得复杂。本研究使用大量的儿童流行病学样本，考察了焦虑和抑郁症状在时间和性别上的测量稳定性。1994 年，从全国青年纵向调查（NLSY）中抽取了一个由 1329 名年龄在 4 至 7 岁的儿童（624 名女孩和 705 名男孩）组成的全国代表性队列。利用八年的前瞻性数据，我们检验了焦虑（五项）和抑郁（四项）症状的一个或两个因素结构是否在时间和性别上具有不变性。尽管每个因素的项目在时间上存在可变性，但验证性因素分析显示，焦虑和抑郁的因素在时间和性别上是稳定的。研究结果表明，焦虑和抑郁之间的共变不太可能是测量重叠的结果。然而，NLSY 中表明焦虑和抑郁因素的项目可能不足以对这些因素进行发展敏感的测量。
