How does subjective social status at school at the age of 15 affect the risk of depressive symptoms at the ages of 18, 21, and 28? A longitudinal study

by Marie Kjærgaard Lange, Vivi Just-Nørregaard, Trine Nøhr Winding

Background

Young people’s mental health is declining. Depression is a public disease which is increasing internationally, and in Denmark an increase is seen especially among young people. Objective social status is known to be associated with mental health and depression, but little is known about the association between adolescent subjective social status at school and depressive symptoms during young adulthood. The aim was to investigate the association between 15-year-old’s subjective social status at school and the development of depressive symptoms at age 18, 21 and 28.

Methods

The study is a longitudinal study using questionnaire data from The West Jutland Cohort Study Denmark. The study population consisted of adolescents who at baseline, at age 15 (2004), had answered questions about their subjective social status in school using the MacArthur scale-youth version. Answers were categorised into low, medium, and high subjective social status. Outcome data about depressive symptoms was collected at age 18 (2007), age 21 (2010) and age 28 (2017) using the CES-DC and CES-D scales, dichotomised into few or many depressive symptoms. The associations between subjective social status at school at age 15 and depressive symptoms at ages 18, 21 and 28 were analysed using multiple logistic regression.

Results

Statistically significant associations were found between low subjective social status at school at age 15 and the odds of many depressive symptoms at all three age points in young adulthood. When adjusting for co-variates the odds ratio for many depressive symptoms at age 18 was OR 3.34 [1.84;6.08], at age 21 OR 3.31 [1.75;6.26] and at age 28 OR 2.12 [1.13;3.97].

Conclusions

The subjective social status of 15-year-olds is associated with depressive symptoms at ages 18, 21 and 28, respectively. It seems that subjective social status at age 15 is of greatest importance for the occurrence of depressive symptoms in the short run, and that the impact attenuates over time.