Development of Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms from Early Childhood to Late Adolescence
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Development and Discontinuity in Children’s Internalising Symptoms
1.2. Transitioning to Adolescence as a Turning Point for Internalising Symptoms’ Development
1.3. The Present Study
2. Materials and Method
2.1. Participants and Dataset
2.2. Measures
Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms
2.3. Covariates
2.4. Statistical Analyses
2.5. Procedure
3. Results
3.1. Missing Data Analysis and Descriptive Statistics
3.2. Longitudinal Measurement Invariance of Internalising Symptoms
3.3. The Developmental Trajectory of Internalising Symptoms
3.4. Controlling for Standard Demographic Factors
4. Discussion
4.1. Strengths and Limitations
4.2. Future Directions
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Variable | Descriptive Statistic (Mean, SD or %) |
---|---|
Responding parent’s sex (ref: Male) | |
Female | 97.17% |
Sex (ref: Male) | |
Female | 49.10% |
Parent’s income (ref: lowest category) | |
$500–$999 pw $26,000–$51,999 per year | 25.6% |
$1000–$1999 pw $52,000–$103,999 per year | 7.98% |
$2000 or more per week $104,000 or more per year | 1.01% |
Language spoken at home by child (ref: not English) | |
English | 90.8% |
Highest parental education (ref: not university) | |
University-level education | 49.90% |
Parent’s marital status (ref: not married) | |
Married | 84.01% |
Parent attending religious services (ref: no) | |
Yes | 35.49% |
Number of siblings in household | M = 1.48, SD = 0.99 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 4) | M = 3.39, SD = 2.69 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 6) | M = 3.20, SD = 2.78 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 8) | M = 3.13, SD = 2.90 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 10) | M = 3.52, SD = 3.19 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 12) | M = 3.51, SD = 3.12 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 14) | M = 3.59, SD = 3.16 |
Internalizing symptoms (age 16) | M = 3.95, SD = 3.45 |
Invariance Level | Scaled χ2 (df) | CFI | |ΔCFI| | RMSEA | |ΔRMSEA| |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Emotional symptoms | |||||
Configural | 1599.634 (529) *** | 0.964 | 0.027 | ||
Metric | 1740.096 (553) *** | 0.960 | 0.004 | 0.028 | 0.001 |
Scalar | 1696.709 (577) *** | 0.962 | 0.002 | 0.026 | 0.002 |
Strict | 2022.697 (607) *** | 0.952 | 0.010 | 0.029 | 0.003 |
Peer problems | |||||
Configural | 1141.673 (529) *** | 0.970 | 0.020 | ||
Metric | 1230.926 (553) *** | 0.967 | 0.003 | 0.021 | 0.001 |
Scalar | 1339.942 (577) *** | 0.963 | 0.004 | 0.022 | 0.001 |
Strict | 1516.078 (607) *** | 0.956 | 0.007 | 0.023 | 0.001 |
Trajectory Shape Specification | Scaled χ2 (df) | CFI | TLI | RMSEA | SRMR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linear | 313.449 (23) *** | 0.938 | 0.943 | 0.067 | 0.066 |
Quadratic | 139.758 (19) *** | 0.974 | 0.972 | 0.048 | 0.028 |
Piecewise linear-linear knot at age 8 | 127.564 (19) *** | 0.977 | 0.974 | 0.045 | 0.028 |
Piecewise linear-quadratic knot at age 8 | 60.123 (14) *** | 0.990 | 0.985 | 0.034 | 0.019 |
Piecewise linear-linear knot at age 10 | 146.586 (19) *** | 0.973 | 0.970 | 0.049 | 0.030 |
Piecewise linear-quadratic knot at age 10 | 109.475 (14) *** | 0.980 | 0.969 | 0.049 | 0.026 |
Piecewise quadratic-quadratic knot at age 10 | 11.902 (8) ns | 0.999 | 0.998 | 0.013 | 0.009 |
Piecewise linear-linear knot at age 12 | 175.730 (19) *** | 0.967 | 0.963 | 0.054 | 0.042 |
Piecewise quadratic-linear knot at age 12 | 66.419 (14) *** | 0.989 | 0.983 | 0.037 | 0.020 |
Path Specification | Parameter Estimate (S.E.) | Two-Tailed p-Value |
---|---|---|
Correlations | ||
Linear slope 1—Intercept | −0.379 (0.098) | 0.000 |
Quadratic slope 1—Intercept | 0.315 (0.106) | 0.003 |
Linear slope 1 –Quadratic slope 1 | −0.922 (0.017) | 0.000 |
Linear slope 2—Intercept | −0.158 (0.067) | 0.019 |
Linear slope 1—Linear slope 2 | −0.250 (0.131) | 0.057 |
Linear slope 2—Quadratic slope 1 | 0.258 (0.204) | 0.205 |
Quadratic slope 2—Intercept | 0.070 (0.056) | 0.194 |
Quadratic slope 2—Linear slope 1 | 0.157 (0.088) | 0.072 |
Quadratic slope 1—Quadratic slope 2 | −0.179 (0.129) | 0.165 |
Quadratic slope 2—Linear slope 2 | −0.852 (0.027) | 0.000 |
Latent means (unstandardized) | ||
Intercept | 3.407 (0.067) | 0.000 |
Linear slope 1 | −0.198 (0.035) | 0.000 |
Quadratic slope 1 | 0.036 (0.005) | 0.000 |
Linear slope 2 | −0.059 (0.034) | 0.086 |
Quadratic slope 2 | 0.022 (0.006) | 0.000 |
Latent variances (unstandardized) | ||
Intercept | 5.247 (0.564) | 0.000 |
Linear slope 1 | 0.889 (0.177) | 0.000 |
Quadratic slope 1 | 0.016 (0.003) | 0.000 |
Linear slope 2 | 0.412 (0.113) | 0.000 |
Quadratic slope 2 | 0.017 (0.003) | 0.000 |
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Katsantonis, I.G. Development of Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms from Early Childhood to Late Adolescence. Eur. J. Investig. Health Psychol. Educ. 2024, 14, 2404-2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe14080159
Katsantonis IG. Development of Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms from Early Childhood to Late Adolescence. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education. 2024; 14(8):2404-2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe14080159
Chicago/Turabian StyleKatsantonis, Ioannis G. 2024. "Development of Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms from Early Childhood to Late Adolescence" European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education 14, no. 8: 2404-2416. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe14080159