Abstract
Longitudinal evidence demonstrating the association between parental absence and depressive symptoms in adolescence is limited. The present study aimed to explore this relationship in a Chinese national representative sample. This research was based on the China Family Panel Studies and included 1481 subjects. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the self-reported Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression questionnaire. A multiple logistic regression model with a generalized estimating equation was used to test the association between parental absence and adolescent depressive symptoms. In the baseline year, 2012, 29.03% and 43.75% of adolescents had maternal and paternal absence, respectively. The prevalence of depressive symptoms increased from 23.23% to 28.12% in subsequent years. After controlling for covariates, maternal absence was positively associated with depressive symptoms (odds ratio 1.69, 95% confidence interval 1.06–2.68). Maternal absence led to depression in adolescents. It may be beneficial for adolescents with depression to spend more time with their mothers.
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Data Availability
Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://opendata.pku.edu.cn
Code Availability
The code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank China Family Panel Studies Office and Institute Social Science Survey at Peking University. Thanks to Project 985 of Peking University for funding the implementation of the CFPS project.
Funding
This work was supported by the research project of Ningxia Medical University (No. XT2019009) and the key research and development project of Ningxia Autonomous Region (No. 2021BEG02030).
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ZY: validation, formal analysis, writing—original draft; YD: validation, formal analysis; NH: validation, writing—original draft; YZ: project administration, validation; JL: validation, supervision, writing and revision conceptualization.
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The CFPS is a nationally representative, biennial household survey that has been performed since 2010, organized by the Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University. The Peking University Biomedical Ethics Review Committee provided ethical approval for the survey (Approval number: IRB00001052-14010).
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Yu, Z., Du, Y., Hu, N. et al. Association Between Parental Absence and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: Evidence From a National Household Longitudinal Survey. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 55, 405–414 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01415-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01415-7