TY - JOUR
T1 - A cross-lagged twin study of emotional symptoms, social isolation, and peer victimisation from early adolescence to emerging adulthood
AU - Morneau-Vaillancourt, Geneviève
AU - Oginni, Olakunle
AU - Assary, Elham
AU - Krebs, Georgina
AU - Thompson, Ellen
AU - Palaiologou, Elisavet
AU - Lockhart, Celestine
AU - Arseneault, Louise
AU - Eley, Thalia
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the ongoing contribution of the participants in the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) and their families. TEDS is supported by a program grant from the UK Medical Research Council (MR/V012878/1 and previously MR/M021475/1), with additional support from the US National Institutes of Health (AG046938). This study presents independent research part‐funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, or the Department of Health. G.M.‐V. is supported by postdoctoral fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (756‐2021‐0516) and Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et Culture (2022‐B3Z‐297753). For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Accepted Author Manuscript version arising from this submission. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. Key points
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - Background: Emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, are common during adolescence, often persist over time, and can precede the emergence of severe anxiety and depressive disorders. Studies suggest that a vicious cycle of reciprocal influences between emotional symptoms and interpersonal difficulties may explain why some adolescents suffer from persisting emotional symptoms. However, the role of different types of interpersonal difficulties, such as social isolation and peer victimisation, in these reciprocal associations is still unclear. In addition, the lack of longitudinal twin studies conducted on emotional symptoms during adolescence means that the genetic and environmental contributions to these relationships during adolescence remain unknown. Methods: Participants (N = 15,869) from the Twins Early Development Study completed self-reports of emotional symptoms, social isolation and peer victimisation at 12, 16 and 21 years old. A phenotypic cross-lagged model examined reciprocal associations between variables over time, and a genetic extension of this model examined the aetiology of the relationships between variables at each timepoint. Results: First, emotional symptoms were reciprocally and independently associated with both social isolation and peer victimisation over time, indicating that different forms of interpersonal difficulties uniquely contributed to emotional symptoms during adolescence and vice versa. Second, early peer victimisation predicted later emotional symptoms via social isolation in mid-adolescence, indicating that social isolation may constitute an intermediate pathway through which peer victimisation predicts longer-term emotional symptoms. Finally, individual differences in emotional symptoms were mostly accounted for by non-shared environmental factors at each timepoint, and both gene–environment and individual-specific environmental mechanisms were involved in the relationships between emotional symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. Conclusions: Our study highlights the necessity to intervene early in adolescence to prevent the escalation of emotional symptoms over time and to consider social isolation and peer victimisation as important risk factors for the long-term persistence of emotional symptoms.
AB - Background: Emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, are common during adolescence, often persist over time, and can precede the emergence of severe anxiety and depressive disorders. Studies suggest that a vicious cycle of reciprocal influences between emotional symptoms and interpersonal difficulties may explain why some adolescents suffer from persisting emotional symptoms. However, the role of different types of interpersonal difficulties, such as social isolation and peer victimisation, in these reciprocal associations is still unclear. In addition, the lack of longitudinal twin studies conducted on emotional symptoms during adolescence means that the genetic and environmental contributions to these relationships during adolescence remain unknown. Methods: Participants (N = 15,869) from the Twins Early Development Study completed self-reports of emotional symptoms, social isolation and peer victimisation at 12, 16 and 21 years old. A phenotypic cross-lagged model examined reciprocal associations between variables over time, and a genetic extension of this model examined the aetiology of the relationships between variables at each timepoint. Results: First, emotional symptoms were reciprocally and independently associated with both social isolation and peer victimisation over time, indicating that different forms of interpersonal difficulties uniquely contributed to emotional symptoms during adolescence and vice versa. Second, early peer victimisation predicted later emotional symptoms via social isolation in mid-adolescence, indicating that social isolation may constitute an intermediate pathway through which peer victimisation predicts longer-term emotional symptoms. Finally, individual differences in emotional symptoms were mostly accounted for by non-shared environmental factors at each timepoint, and both gene–environment and individual-specific environmental mechanisms were involved in the relationships between emotional symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. Conclusions: Our study highlights the necessity to intervene early in adolescence to prevent the escalation of emotional symptoms over time and to consider social isolation and peer victimisation as important risk factors for the long-term persistence of emotional symptoms.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85161585971&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/jcpp.13847
DO - 10.1111/jcpp.13847
M3 - Article
SN - 0021-9630
VL - 64
SP - 1569
EP - 1582
JO - Journal of Child Psychiatry & Psychology
JF - Journal of Child Psychiatry & Psychology
IS - 11
ER -