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Continuity and Stability of Child and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms in South Korea: A Meta-analysis of Longitudinal Studies

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Many adolescents in South Korea experience risk-level depressive symptoms due to stress caused by personal and environmental changes. Prior studies investigated various characteristics of depressive symptoms. However, it is unclear when the mean level of depression changes with the development of children and adolescents and whether it is stable relative to one another over time. Thus, it is necessary to closely understand the continuity and stability of depressive symptoms across developmental stages in children and adolescents. In this study, continuity refers to the consistency in a group’s mean level of depressive symptoms over time; however, stability refers to the consistency in the relative placement of the levels of depressive symptoms of individuals within a group over time. To comprehensively understand previous studies, this meta-analysis compiled data from 95 South Korean longitudinal studies (N = 200,338; 49.7% females) published between 2000 and 2021. Data were analyzed using a three-level random effects model with a 1-year interval for each age group to integrate effect sizes, followed by a generalized additive mixed model integrating age as a continuous variable. The results indicate that the mean-level continuity of depressive symptoms was relatively high and the rank-order stability was low for the children in elementary school (including both upper and lower grades). Additionally, as the adolescents aged, the mean-level continuity of depressive symptoms slightly decreased while stability increased. When entering early adulthood, the continuity and stability of depressive symptoms converged without significant change. As a result of moderating effect, the female-only group indicated a high level of continuity and stability than the male-only or mixed group. The findings highlight that South Korean childhood is a period of relatively high continuity and low stability. Moreover, female students’ depressive symptoms fluctuate more than those of males, suggesting the need for providing effective and appropriate help.

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Notes

  1. The Korea Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) consists of three different panels: a 1st-grade elementary school panel, a 4th-grade elementary school panel, and a 1st-grade middle school panel. These three panels followed up on the development and environment of children and adolescents every year from 2010 to 2017.

  2. Birth cohort calculated average birth year as data collection start year minus average age at first measurement or was estimated in the absence of specific year information as publication year minus (3+ total time interval in years between the first and last measurements) minus average age at first measurement following Mund et al. (2020).

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  • References marked by an asterisk (*) indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.

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Authors’ Contributions

S.K.S. conceived this study, participated in its design and coordination, performed statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. H.J.L. participated in data collection, interpreted statistical analyses, and helped draft the manuscript. Y.N.J. participated in data collection, performed statistical analysis, and helped draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2021S1A5A806939311).

Data Sharing and Declaration

The datasets generated and/or analyzed for the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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  1. Innovation Project Group, Woosuk University, 443, Samnye-ro, Samnye-eup, Wanju-gun, Jeollabuk-do, 55338, Republic of Korea

    Sookyoung Son

  2. Department of Education, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, Republic of Korea

    Hyunjung Lee & Yoona Jang

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Table 6

Table 6 Studies included in meta-analyses
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Son, S., Lee, H. & Jang, Y. Continuity and Stability of Child and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms in South Korea: A Meta-analysis of Longitudinal Studies. J Youth Adolescence 52, 598–618 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01709-y

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