Depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse often co-occur and all three predict poor social, academic, and emotional outcomes, particularly for adolescent girls. However it is unclear what relationships exist among these problems.
A study by Carolyn Sartor, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine; former Yale predoctoral fellow Jessica Schleider, PhD; and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh explored reciprocal associations between depression and alcohol use and anxiety and alcohol use in girls ages 13 to 17. The researchers sought to answer the question do depression and anxiety lead to more alcohol use or does drinking lead to increased depression and anxiety?
Researchers examined data from 2,100 female adolescents (57 percent were black and 43 percent were white) on their past year depression, anxiety, and alcohol use. Primary caregivers provided socioeconomic and neighborhood information. The researchers also collected data on race, onset of puberty, and conduct problems.
Results indicated that higher levels of depression, but not anxiety, modestly predicted subsequent year use of alcohol in girls ages 13 to 17. Prior year alcohol use modestly predicted decreased depression at age 15 and 17. Anxiety and alcohol use were not associated with one another.
The complex pattern of associations highlights the key role of depression, relative to anxiety, in predicting female adolescents’ alcohol use. It also suggests the potential promise of depression prevention programs to reduce alcohol use in female adolescents.
The study was published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Sartor was the senior author. Schleider, the first author, is a graduate of the Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology program at Yale School of Medicine.