Department of Psychology, Institute of Education, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453007, China.
Mental Health Center, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453007, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Mar 16;19(6):3508. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19063508.
Depressive symptoms are prevalent in Chinese college students, but little is known about the heterogeneity in the developmental trajectory of depressive symptoms in China. This study examined heterogeneity in the development of depressive symptoms and examined the effect of gender on the developmental trajectories over a 14-month period among Chinese college students (N = 1163, mean age 20.18, 80.31% female). Three different trajectories, moderate-increasing, high-stable and low-stable, captured the heterogeneity in the development of depressive symptoms. Gender showed significant influence on class membership. Relative to the moderate-increasing class, males emerged as significantly more likely than females to be found in the low-stable class (odds ratio (OR) = 2.73, 95% CI = (1.21, 6.13), = 0.015) and the high-stable class (OR = 5.10, 95% CI = (1.12, 23.18), = 0.035). The results provide additional evidence for the conclusion that the trajectories of depressive symptoms are heterogeneous with Chinese samples. Moreover, cultural difference should be paid more attention to when examining the effect of gender and other predictors of the trajectories of depressive symptoms.
抑郁症状在中国大学生中普遍存在，但对于中国大学生抑郁症状发展轨迹的异质性知之甚少。本研究考察了抑郁症状发展的异质性，并考察了性别对中国大学生 14 个月期间发展轨迹的影响（N=1163，平均年龄 20.18 岁，80.31%为女性）。三种不同的轨迹，即中度增加、高稳定和低稳定，捕捉了抑郁症状发展的异质性。性别对类别的归属有显著影响。与中度增加类相比，男性更有可能属于低稳定类（优势比（OR）=2.73，95%置信区间（CI）=（1.21, 6.13），=0.015）和高稳定类（OR=5.10，95%CI=（1.12, 23.18），=0.035）。研究结果进一步证明，抑郁症状的轨迹在具有中国样本的情况下是异质的。此外，在考察性别和抑郁症状轨迹其他预测因素的影响时，应更加关注文化差异。
