Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa.
Psychol Bull. 2017 Sep;143(9):903-938. doi: 10.1037/bul0000106. Epub 2017 May 22.
Research examining pubertal timing effects on psychopathology has emphasized that a subset of adolescents, particularly females, who experience early pubertal maturation relative to their peers appear to be at increased risk for psychopathology. The aims of the current meta-analysis were (a) to quantify the magnitude of early pubertal timing effects on psychopathology, (b) to examine potential moderators of pubertal timing effects (sex, psychopathology domain, sample composition, measurement method, and mean sample age), and (c) to examine findings in relation to hypotheses in the extant literature explicating differential pubertal timing effects for early versus late youth and males versus females. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed and PsycINFO databases and 101 articles met criteria for inclusion. Included studies reported a quantitative association between pubertal timing and higher-order broadband dimensions of psychopathology (i.e., internalizing, externalizing), and/or lower-order subdomains (i.e., distress, fear, antisocial behavior, substance abuse, eating pathology). Using meta-analytic methods, we estimated global effect sizes (Cohen's ds) for the association between pubertal timing and psychopathology. Adolescent sex did not moderate early pubertal timing effects on emotional and behavior problems. However, robust early pubertal timing effects emerged for both males and females across all domains of psychopathology that were small in magnitude (ds∼.20). Measurement method of pubertal timing, but not sample composition or mean sample age, significantly contributed to the heterogeneity of effect sizes across studies. Findings have implications for refinement of theoretical models of pubertal timing effects on psychopathology and highlight the importance of empirical work that can identify pathways which may link offset pubertal timing to psychopathology during adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record
研究青春期启动时间对精神病理学的影响强调，相对于同龄人，有一部分青少年，尤其是女性，青春期启动较早，似乎面临更高的精神病理学风险。本研究的目的是：（a）量化青春期启动时间对精神病理学的影响程度；（b）探讨青春期启动时间影响的潜在调节因素（性别、精神病理学领域、样本构成、测量方法和平均样本年龄）；（c）根据现有文献中阐述青春期早期和晚期以及男性和女性之间不同的青春期启动时间效应的假设，检验研究结果。在 PubMed 和 PsycINFO 数据库中进行了系统的文献检索，有 101 篇文章符合纳入标准。纳入的研究报告了青春期启动时间与较高阶宽带精神病理学维度（即内化问题、外化问题）和/或较低阶亚维度（即痛苦、恐惧、反社会行为、物质滥用、进食障碍）之间的定量关联。使用元分析方法，我们估计了青春期启动时间与精神病理学之间的关联的总体效应大小（Cohen's ds）。青春期启动时间对男性和女性的情绪和行为问题都没有影响。然而，在所有精神病理学领域中，都出现了青春期启动时间对男性和女性都有影响的稳健效应，其效应大小较小（ds∼.20）。青春期启动时间的测量方法，而不是样本构成或平均样本年龄，显著影响了研究之间效应大小的异质性。这些发现对完善青春期启动时间对精神病理学影响的理论模型具有启示意义，并强调了开展能够确定青春期启动时间与青少年精神病理学之间联系的途径的实证工作的重要性。
