Association between pubertal development and depressive symptoms in girls from a UK cohort
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: It is unclear whether pubertal status or timing of puberty explains the increase in depressive symptoms in girls during adolescence. METHOD: This is a longitudinal study based on 2506 girls from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Self-reported depressive symptoms at 10.5, 13 and 14 years were assessed using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ). Pubertal status (Tanner breast and pubic hair stage) and timing of menarche were derived from questionnaires administered from age 8 to 14 years. We used multivariable regression models to examine the relative contributions of pubertal status and timing in accounting for increases in level of depressive symptoms at 14 years. RESULTS: With increasing age, the association between breast development and depressive symptoms strengthened. Pubertal status (breast stage), rather than timing of menarche, was independently associated with depressive symptoms at 14 years. There was strong evidence for a linear relationship between breast stage and depressive symptoms at 14 years [increase in 0.17 S.D. (range 0.10-0.24) of depressive symptoms for advancement of each breast stage]. CONCLUSIONS: Depressive symptoms in mid-adolescence were more strongly influenced by breast stage than timing of menarche. This could imply that the female rise in depression during adolescence is due to increasing estrogen levels, and might explain why the gender difference in rates of depression emerges at this stage. Future research should be aimed at identifying the mechanism of action of pubertal change, including direct effects of pubertal hormones and indirect effects mediated by psychosocial factors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".