Panaite Vanessa, Rottenberg Jonathan, Bylsma Lauren M
Research and Development Service, James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, Tampa, FL USA.
Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL USA.
Affect Sci. 2020 Oct 3;1(3):186-198. doi: 10.1007/s42761-020-00014-w. eCollection 2020 Sep.
Affective dynamics have been increasingly recognized as important indicators of emotional health and well-being. Depression has been associated with altered affective dynamics, but little is known about how daily life affective dynamics predict depression's naturalistic course. We investigated positive and negative affective dynamics (e.g., inertia, variability, and instability) among adults with depressive disorders ( = 60) and healthy controls ( = 38) in both cross-sectional and prospective analyses predicting weekly depression symptoms over 6 months. Relative to controls, depressed individuals showed elevated daily negative affect (NA) and NA variability along with decreased positive affect (PA). However, groups did not significantly differ on other affective dynamic indices. Based on multivariate prospective analyses of depressed individuals (follow-up = 36), higher daily NA and lower daily PA were independently associated with higher and average weekly depressive symptom severity over the subsequent 6 months. Exploratory analyses of depression symptom trajectory shape revealed that higher NA and PA variability, NA inertia, and NA instability all predicted an initial increase and eventual return to higher depression symptom levels over the 6-month follow-up period. Daily life affective dynamics may have utility for predicting the naturalistic course of depression, which may help guide interventions targeting affective dynamics in vulnerable individuals.
情感动态已日益被视为情绪健康和幸福的重要指标。抑郁症与情感动态的改变有关，但对于日常生活中的情感动态如何预测抑郁症的自然病程却知之甚少。我们在横断面和前瞻性分析中，对患有抑郁症的成年人（n = 60）和健康对照者（n = 38）的积极和消极情感动态（如惯性、变异性和不稳定性）进行了调查，以预测6个月内每周的抑郁症状。与对照组相比，抑郁个体的每日消极情绪（NA）和NA变异性升高，同时积极情绪（PA）降低。然而，两组在其他情感动态指标上没有显著差异。基于对抑郁个体的多变量前瞻性分析（随访n = 36），在随后的6个月中，每日较高的NA和较低的每日PA分别独立地与较高和平均每周的抑郁症状严重程度相关。对抑郁症状轨迹形状的探索性分析表明，较高的NA和PA变异性、NA惯性和NA不稳定性均预测在6个月的随访期内抑郁症状水平最初会升高，最终会回到较高水平。日常生活中的情感动态可能有助于预测抑郁症的自然病程，这可能有助于指导针对易感个体情感动态的干预措施。
