Embracing the positive: An examination of how well resilience factors at age 14 can predict distress at age 17

Abstract

THIS IS A PRE-PRINT OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN “TRANSLATIONAL PSYCHIATRY (10: 272)”. THE FINAL AUTHENTICATED VERSION IS AVAILABLE ONLINE AT: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-00944-wOne-in-two people suffering from mental health problems develop such distress before or during adolescence. Resilience factors (RFs) decrease mental health problems. However, little is known about which RFs are the best indicators for subsequent distress, and with what accuracy RFs predict subsequent distress. We examined ten RFs and distress in 1130 adolescents, at age 14 and 17. Low brooding, low negative and high positive self-esteem RFs were the most important indicators for age-17 distress. RFs and age-14 distress predicted age-17 distress similarly. The accuracy was acceptable for ordinal (low/moderate/high age-17 distress-classes: 62-64%), but low for linear models (37-41%). Crucially, the accuracy remained similar when only self-esteem and brooding RFs were used (ordinal=60%; linear=37%); correctly predicting for about two-in-three adolescents whether they have low, moderate or high distress three years later. As assessing brooding and self-esteem is strength-focussed and time-efficient, those RFs may be promising for risk-detection and translational intervention research.