Longitudinal associations between social anxiety symptoms and cannabis use throughout adolescence: the role of peer involvement.

There appear to be contradicting theories and empirical findings on the association between adolescent Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) symptoms and cannabis use, suggesting potential risk as well as protective pathways. The aim of this six-year longitudinal study was to further examine associations between SAD symptoms and cannabis use over time in adolescents from the general population, specifically focusing on the potential role that adolescents' involvement with their peers may have in these associations. Participants were 497 Dutch adolescents (57 % boys; M age = 13.

Decreases in adolescent weekly alcohol use in Europe and North America: evidence from 28 countries from 2002 to 2010.

Background: This study examined trends in adolescent weekly alcohol use between 2002 and 2010 in 28 European and North American countries.

Methods: Analyses were based on data from 11-, 13- and 15-year-old adolescents who participated in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study in 2002, 2006 and 2010.

Results: Weekly alcohol use declined in 20 of 28 countries and in all geographic regions, from 12.

Cross-national evidence for the clustering and psychosocial correlates of adolescent risk behaviours in 27 countries.

Background: According to Jessor's Problem Behaviour Theory (PBT) and Moffitt's theory of adolescence-limited antisocial behaviour, adolescent risk behaviours cluster and can be predicted by various psychosocial factors including parent, peer and school attachment. This study tested the potential influence of the sociocultural, or macro-level, environment on the clustering and correlates of adolescent risk behaviour across 27 European and North American countries.

Methods: Analyses were based on data from the 2009-10 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study.

Improving Screening Cut-Off Scores for DSM-5 Adolescent Anxiety Disorder Symptom Dimensions with the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders.

Presently most adolescent anxiety disorder screening instruments make their determination of running a high risk for an anxiety disorder on the basis of a cut-off score measured by a single screening which can lead to false positives. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine whether a repeated administration of the SCARED screening instrument for DSM-5 anxiety disorder symptoms could help in the detection of true positives while also avoiding false positives. Participants were 923 early adolescents from the general community.

Heterogeneity in development of adolescent anxiety disorder symptoms in an 8-year longitudinal community study.

In this study, we prospectively examined developmental trajectories of five anxiety disorder symptom dimensions (generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, school anxiety, separation anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder) from early to late adolescence in a community sample of 239 adolescents, assessed annually over 8 years. Latent growth modeling indicated different developmental trajectories from early into late adolescence for the different anxiety disorder symptoms, with some symptoms decreasing and other symptoms increasing over time. Sex differences in developmental trajectories were found for some symptoms, but not all.

Psychometric properties of the screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders for socially anxious and healthy Spanish adolescents.

Socially anxious and healthy Spanish adolescents were studied in order to test the psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Confirmatory factor analyses were employed to test measurement invariance between these two populations, Cronbach's alphas were calculated to determine the reliabilities of the scales, and partial eta-square tests calculated the effect size of the differences between socially anxious and healthy adolescents and between the adolescent boys and girls. The psychometric properties of the SCARED were good, as demonstrated by having acceptable reliabilities (ranging from .

Effects of nicotine dependence and depressive symptoms on smoking cessation: a longitudinal study among adolescents.

Introduction: Nicotine dependence has been shown to hamper successful smoking cessation in adolescents. Nicotine dependence and depression are highly comorbid, but the relation between depression and smoking cessation is not yet fully understood. Therefore, the present study examines both the longitudinal reciprocal relation between nicotine dependence and depressive symptoms, and the longitudinal effect of these factors on successful smoking cessation and number of quit attempts.

Explaining educational differences in adolescent substance use and early sexual debut: the role of parents and peers.

Previous studies from a wide variety of European countries have demonstrated that low educated adolescents engage more frequently in health risk behaviors compared to high educated adolescents. The present study investigates the mediating roles of parental knowledge and time spent with peers in this relationship. Data were retrieved from a nationally representative sample of 12- to 16-year old Dutch adolescents (N=5422).

Replication of the five-dimensional structure of positive psychotic experiences in young adulthood.

Previous work has examined the structure of subclinical positive psychotic experiences. The current study, using confirmatory factor analysis in a general population sample of young adult females, replicated a five-dimensional model, which showed excellent model fit. The results suggest stability of the five-dimensional model across adolescent and young adult life.

Prenatal smoking exposure and the risk of behavioral problems and substance use in adolescence: the TRAILS study.

Aims: To study the prospective relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSP) and behavioral problems, heavy alcohol use, daily smoking, and ever use of cannabis in the offspring, and to assess the role of confounding and mediating factors in a systematic way.

Methods: Population-based cohort study of 2,230 respondents, starting in 2001 when respondents were around the age of 11 years, and two follow-up measurements at intervals of about 2.5 years (response rates of 96.

The role of adolescents' morality and identity in volunteering. Age and gender differences in a process model.

The aim of this study was to explain adolescents' volunteering in terms of their morality and identity and to examine the moderation effect of gender and age in this process. Data were collected among 698 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 20 (M = 15.19; SD = 1.

Come rain or come shine: individual differences in how weather affects mood.

There is a widespread belief that weather affects mood. However, few studies have investigated this link, and even less is known about individual differences in people's responses to the weather. In the current study, we sought to identify weather reactivity types by linking self-reported daily mood across 30 days with objective weather data.

The direction of effects between perceived parental behavioral control and psychological control and adolescents' self-reported GAD and SAD symptoms.

This study examined the direction of effects and age and sex differences between adolescents' perceptions of parental behavioral and psychological control and adolescents' self-reports of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and separation anxiety disorder (SAD) symptoms. The study focused on 1,313 Dutch adolescents (early-to-middle cohort n = 923, 70.3%; middle-to-late cohort n = 390, 29.

Cross-ethnic generalizability of the three-factor model of psychopathy: the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory in an incarcerated sample of native Dutch and Moroccan immigrant boys.

Background: Previous research provides support for the existence of the psychopathy construct in youths. However, studies regarding the psychometric properties of psychopathy measures with ethnic minority youths are lacking.

Methods: In the present study, the three-factor structure of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) was examined for both native Dutch youth (N=158) and an ethnic minority group, Moroccans (N=141), in an incarcerated adolescent population in the Netherlands.

How does longitudinally measured maternal expressed emotion affect internalizing and externalizing symptoms of adolescents from the general community?

Background: In previous studies, maternal expressed emotion (EE) has been found to be a good predictor of the course of adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, these studies have been cross-section as opposed to longitudinal. The goal of this study is to examine longitudinal data of perceived maternal EE and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms to determine if maternal EE affected the course of adolescent symptoms (a parent effect model), or if the course of adolescent symptoms affected maternal EE (a child effect model), or if maternal EE and adolescent symptoms affected one another bidirectionally.

A meta-analysis of the cross-cultural psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED).

Background: Accumulating studies have demonstrated that the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), a modern youth anxiety questionnaire with scales explicitly designed to map onto specific DSM-IV-TR anxiety disorders, has good psychometric properties for children and adolescents from various countries. However, no study has yet been conducted as to the overall strength of the psychometric properties found in these studies.

Methods: Studies were collected from the PsycINFO, PubMed, SSCI, SCI-Expanded, ERIC, and A&HCI databases from the year of the SCARED's first publication (1997) to the present.

The predictive capacity of perceived expressed emotion as a dynamic entity of adolescents from the general community.

Background: In previous studies, it has been demonstrated that high parental expressed emotion (EE) is predictive of depressive, aggressive and delinquency symptoms of adolescents. Two issues have received much less prominence in EE research, these being studies of adolescent perceived EE and the measurement of the EE as a dynamic, developmental construct. This 4-year, three-wave, longitudinal study of perceived EE of adolescents from the general community examines if adolescent perceived EE measured with the traditional, one-measurement EE approach as well as adolescent perceived EE measured with a repeated measured, dynamic EE approach can predict adolescent depressive, aggressive and delinquency symptoms.

Identity formation in adolescence: change or stability?

The aim of this five-wave longitudinal study of 923 early to middle adolescents (50.7% boys; 49.3% girls) and 390 middle to late adolescents (43.

The structure of the extended psychosis phenotype in early adolescence--a cross-sample replication.

The extended psychosis phenotype, or the expression of nonclinical positive psychotic experiences, is already prevalent in adolescence and has a dose-response risk relationship with later psychotic disorder. In 2 large adolescent general population samples (n = 5422 and n = 2230), prevalence and structure of the extended psychosis phenotype was investigated. Positive psychotic experiences, broadly defined, were reported by the majority of adolescents.

Is it the music? Peer substance use as a mediator of the link between music preferences and adolescent substance use.

Both music preferences and the substance use behavior of peers are important elements in explaining adolescent substance use. The extent to which music preference and peer use overlap in explaining adolescent substance use remains to be determined. A nationally representative sample of 7324 Dutch school-going adolescents (aged 12-16) provided data on music preferences, substance use behaviors and perceived number of peers using substances.

One factor or two parallel processes? Comorbidity and development of adolescent anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms.

Background: This study investigates whether anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms of adolescents from the general community are best described by a model that assumes they are indicative of one general factor or by a model that assumes they are two distinct disorders with parallel growth processes. Additional analyses were conducted to explore the comorbidity of adolescent anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms and the effects that adolescent anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms have on each other's symptom severity growth.

Methods: Two cohorts of early (N = 923; Age range 10-15 years; Mean age = 12.

Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in the general Italian adolescent population: a validation and a comparison between Italy and The Netherlands.

In this study examination is given to the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in a large community sample of adolescents. Additionally, a comparison was made between the anxiety scores of this Italian adolescent cohort (N=1975) and a comparative Dutch adolescent cohort (N=1115). Findings revealed that a five-factor structure of the SCARED applied not only to the Italian adolescents from the general community, but also to boys and girls, and to early and middle adolescents.

Maturation of personality in adolescence.

The present research assesses adolescent personality maturation by examining 3 measures of change and stability (i.e., mean-level change, rank-order stability, and profile similarity) of Big Five personality traits, employing data from a 5-annual-wave study with overlapping early to middle (n = 923) and middle to late (n = 390) adolescent cohorts.

The soundtrack of substance use: music preference and adolescent smoking and drinking.

A connection between preferences for heavy metal, rap, reggae, electronic dance music, and substance use has previously been established. However, evidence as to the gender-specific links between substance use and a wider range of music genres in a nationally representative sample of adolescents has to date been missing. In 2003, the Dutch government funded the Dutch National School Survey on Substance Use (DNSSSU), a self-report questionnaire among a representative school-based sample of 7,324 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years, assessed music preference, tobacco, and alcohol use and a set of relevant covariates related to both substance use and music preference.

Developmental trajectories of adolescent anxiety disorder symptoms: a 5-year prospective community study.

Objective: This study prospectively examined the developmental trajectories of anxiety disorder symptoms in a large sample of adolescents from the general population.

Method: Two cohorts of early and middle adolescents (1,318 junior high and high school students) completed the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders during 5 consecutive years. The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders is a questionnaire that measures self-rated child and adolescent anxiety symptoms that map onto DSM-IV-TR anxiety disorders.