J Affect Disord. 2025 Jul 26:120000. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.120000. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The sequential association between depressive/anxious symptoms and FAPDs in youths, and the mediation of emotion dysregulation in the above association, remains inconclusive. We aim to fill these knowledge gaps in the current study.
METHODS: A three-wave longitudinal study with 5018 subjects aged 11-17 years was conducted in southwest China. The sequential associations between baseline depressive/anxious symptoms (measured at T1) and FAPDs (measured at T3) were estimated using autoregressive cross-lagged models and binary logistic regression models. Path analysis was applied to estimate the mediation of emotion dysregulation measured at T2 in the above sequential associations. Stratified analysis was further performed to test effect modification by important demographics.
RESULTS: A total of 87 and 66 participants were identified as newly occurred FAPD cases at T2 and T3, respectively. Both depressive and anxious symptoms assessed at T1 were significantly associated with FAPDs at T3. Each 1-point increase in PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores at T1 corresponded to a 13 % and 11 % increase in the odds of developing FAPDs at T3 (PHQ-9: OR = 1.13; GAD-7: OR = 1.11; both p < 0.001).Path analysis revealed that emotion dysregulation measured at T2 prominently mediated the above sequential associations, accounted for 21.2 % of depression-FAPDs association, and the entire anxiety-FAPDs association, particularly for the dimension of “strategies”. Sex, developmental stage, and left-behind status posed noticeable effect modification on the mediation of emotion dysregulation.
CONCLUSION: Our findings highlight the promising intervention role of improving emotion regulation ability in antagonizing depressive and anxious symptoms associated subsequent FAPDs risk in the youngsters.
PMID:40721141 | DOI:10.1016/j.jad.2025.120000
