Authors:

Aahan Bajpai

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About Paper:

Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders and has significant impact on adolescents' lives. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), this study investigates the relationship between depression and negative future thinking. Add Health is a nationally representative cohort of individuals born between 1976-1982, interviewed across five waves. This study uses data from waves 1 (N = 20,745, aged 12-18) and 4 (N = 15,701, aged 24-32), which includes retroactive depression diagnoses reported in wave 4, depressive symptoms in waves 1 and 4, and polygenic scores for depression created from genetic data collected in wave 4. We also use prediction questions to test the hypothesis that depressed adolescents have more negative future-thinking compared to non- depressed adolescents. First, we will code three indicators of depression for each participant: self-reported medical diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), reporting symptoms of MDD in adolescence, and a polygenic score that indicates genetic likelihood of MDD. We will use correlation and linear regression analyses to assess the link between adolescent indicators of depression and future-thinking on mortality, love, and illness. And test them against actual life outcomes, using more statistical models, which will be compared for accuracy of self- predictions. Medical practitioners could tailor their approach by identifying at-risk youth to prevent negative life outcomes. Future work on this project will involve mediation analyses to test if a young person's perception of their life outcomes can mediate the association between depression indicators and prospective life outcomes. Keywords: Depression; Linear Regression; Future Thinking; Polygenic Scores; Life Outcomes

Source:

Purdue University / 2025

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Co-authors:

Aahan Bajpai