New ARCH Research

A new ARCH Lab paper entitled, “Trajectories of depressive symptoms during the transition to young adulthood: the role of chronic illness” was recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders. Trajectories increased from early to mid-adolescence, decreased to early young adulthood, then increased again to late young adulthood. This study showed that youth with chronic illness had significantly less favorable trajectories and higher proportions of clinically relevant depressive symptoms compared to youth without chronic illness. Findings suggested that the health and school systems are uniquely positioned to support youth with chronic illness navigate this developmental period in an effort to prevent declines in mental health.