Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2023 Aug;64(8):1232-1241. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13808. Epub 2023 Apr 19.
Psychopathology and risky behaviors increase during adolescence, and understanding which adolescents are most at risk informs prevention and intervention efforts. Pubertal timing relative to same-sex, same-age peers is a known correlate of adolescent outcomes among both boys and girls. However, it remains unclear whether this relation is better explained by a plausible causal process or unobserved familial liability.
We extended previous research by examining associations between pubertal timing in early adolescence (age 14) and outcomes in later adolescence (age 17) in a community sample of 2,510 twins (49% boys, 51% girls).
Earlier pubertal timing was associated with more substance use, risk behavior, internalizing and externalizing problems, and peer problems in later adolescence; these effects were small, consistent with previous literature. Follow-up co-twin control analyses indicated that within-twin-pair differences in pubertal timing were not associated with within-twin-pair differences in most adolescent outcomes after accounting for shared familial liability, suggesting that earlier pubertal timing and adolescent outcomes both reflect familial risk factors. Biometric models indicated that associations between earlier pubertal timing and negative adolescent outcomes were largely attributable to shared genetic liability.
Although earlier pubertal timing was associated with negative adolescent outcomes, our results suggests that these associations did not appear to be caused by earlier pubertal timing but were likely caused by shared genetic influences.
精神病理学和危险行为在青春期增加，了解哪些青少年面临最大的风险可以为预防和干预工作提供信息。相对于同性、同年龄的同龄人，青春期的时间是男孩和女孩青春期结果的已知相关因素。然而，目前尚不清楚这种关系是由合理的因果过程还是未被观察到的家族易感性更好地解释。
我们通过在 2510 对双胞胎（49%的男孩，51%的女孩）的社区样本中检查青春期早期（14 岁）和青春期后期（17 岁）之间的青春期时间关联，扩展了之前的研究。
青春期早期的时间较早与青春期后期的物质使用、风险行为、内化和外化问题以及同伴问题较多有关；这些影响较小，与之前的文献一致。随后的同卵双胞胎对照分析表明，在考虑到共同的家族易感性后，双胞胎内的青春期时间差异与双胞胎内的大多数青春期结果差异无关，这表明青春期早期的时间和青春期的结果都反映了家族风险因素。生物计量模型表明，青春期早期与负面青少年结果之间的关联主要归因于共同的遗传易感性。
尽管青春期早期的时间与负面的青少年结果有关，但我们的结果表明，这些关联似乎不是由青春期早期的时间引起的，而是可能由共同的遗传影响引起的。
