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Depression in Chinese adolescents from 1989 to 2018: An increasing trend and its relationship with social environments

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Abstract

With the dramatic changes in Chinese society, several psychological indicators of Chinese adolescents, such as anxiety, have also changed across birth cohorts. To examine possible birth cohort changes in Chinese adolescents, a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 102 studies (127 data points, N = 104,187) was conducted. The results showed that Chinese adolescents’ scores on the Self-rating Depression Scale increased by at least .76 standard deviations from 1989 to 2018. In addition, male students demonstrated increasing depression over time, whereas female students did not. Chinese adolescents’ depression was significantly correlated with some negative social indicators (e.g., unemployment rate and crime rate) in the corresponding years, 3 years prior, and 1 year prior to the depression data collection. It is evident that social changes play an important role in predicting changes in depression.

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Data Availability

The data that supported the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13048346.v1

Notes

  1. \( \overline{\mathrm{d}}=\sum {W}_i{d}_i/\sum {W}_iW=2{N}_i/\left(8+{d}_i^2\right) \)

    \( \mathrm{d}=\frac{M_{female}-{M}_{male}}{SD} \)

    \( \mathrm{SD}=\sqrt{\left({n}_e-1\right){S}_e^2+\left({n}_c-1\right){S}_c^2/\left({n}_e+{n}_c-2\right)} \).

    In the above formula, Wi refers to the weight of all studies, Ni indicates the gross sample size, d indicates the effect size of a single study, and SD indicates the combined standard deviation in the experimental group and control group; ne/nc and Se/Sc indicate the sample size and the standard deviation in the experimental group and control group, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Qian Su

  2. School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Guofang Liu

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Su, Q., Liu, G. Depression in Chinese adolescents from 1989 to 2018: An increasing trend and its relationship with social environments. Curr Psychol 41, 6966–6977 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01181-6

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