How do Spanish emerging adults feel? Exploring depression, anxiety and stress from a longitudinal and gender analysis [Póster]

How do Spanish emerging adults feel? Exploring depression, anxiety and stress from a longitudinal and gender analysis García-Mendoza, M. C.,1De la Fuente, R.,2Parra, A,1, Díez , M. 1& Sánchez-Queija, I. 1 1Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación. Universidad de Sevilla. España. 2 Escuela Universitaria de Osuna (Sevilla). España. INTRODUCTION Mental disorders such as anxiety, depression or stress are to one of the major health problems in the world, with significantly higher rates among women than among men (WHO, 2015). These disorders have negative effects on people's health and quality of life (WHO, 2022). Emerging adulthood is a transitional stage between adolescence and adulthood characterized by identity explorations, negativity/instability, self-focus, feeling in between, and possibilities/optimism (Arnett, 2014; Reifman et al., 2007). It is also, for those beginning university studies, a period of adaptation to the new institution and new peers. This double transition affects the mental health of young university students (e.g., Hunt & Eisenberg, 2010), who seem to suffer more psychological problems than the general population (e.g., Denovan & Macaskill, 2017). METHOD RESULTS Table 2. Descriptive statistics pertaining to depression, anxiety and stress scores and differences between men and women. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION DAS scores remain stable between the initial and intermediate years of emerging adulthood, in terms of both mean-level stability and rank-order stability. Unlike that found in previous studies (e.g., Beiter et al., 2015; Othman et al., 2019; Puthran et al., 2016), our data therefore reflect more stability than changes in the DAS levels of young university students. In terms of gender differences, women generally had higher levels of DAS than men and were also overrepresented in the severe/extremely severe DAS level ranges. This finding is consistent with that reported to date in the scientific literature, which indicates that women suffer more DAS than men (e.g., Ochnik et al., 2021). Traditionally, women have been considered more likely to report more physical and somatic symptoms than men (Gijsbers van Wijk & Kolk, 1997). Although this may indicate that they truly suffer more internal symptoms, it may also be the result of social desirability bias, to the extent that women may feel less embarrassed than men about talking about their distress. Important need to develop measures to alleviate in some way the internal symptomatology of young university students, and to do so from a gender perspective, which responds to the higher levels of internal symptomatology, especially stress, suffered by young women. Funding: Project PROYEXCEL_00766 and RTI2018-097405-B-I00 Cronbach’s α DepressionW1 .79 AnxietyW1 .76 StressW1 .78 DepresionW2 .74 AnxietyW2 .76 StressW2 .85 Total Men Women M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) tpd DepressionW1 10.67 8.53 10.63 8.85 10.69 8.38 -.07 .94 __ AnxietyW1 8.59 7.94 8.63 8.05 8.58 7.90 .06 .95 __ StressW1 16.22 9.18 15.36 9.03 16.64 9.25 -1.30 .19 __ DepresionW2 9.75 9.32 10.26 9.67 9.05 9.15 .74 .45 __ AnxietyW2 8.65 9.02 8.37 9.07 8.79 9.01 -.42 .67 __ StressW2 15.24 9.77 13.23 8.76 16.13 10.12 -2.58 .01 -0.29 During W1, no significant differences were found between men and women in terms of DAS. Three years later, during W2, women had higher stress levels than men, with a small effect size. Depression: Mean-level stability was observed for depression between W1 and W2. This means that no changes were observed between depression levels during W1 and those same levels during W2 (Pillai multivariate analysis, F=1.32;p=.25;η2=.003), or in terms of the wave*gender interaction (F= 1.44;p=.23;η2= .004). Anxiety: Mean-level stability was observed for anxiety between W1 and W2. No significant differences were observed between mean scores at W1 and mean scores at W2 (Pillai multivariate analysis, F=00;p=.94;η2=.001), or in terms of the wave*gender interaction (F=29;p=.58;η2= .001). Stress: Mean-level stability was observed for stress between W1 and W2. No significant differences were observed between mean scores at W1 and mean scores at W2 (Pillai multivariate analysis, F=3.53;p=.06;η2=.009), or in terms of the wave*gender interaction (F=78;p=.37;η2= .002). REFERENCES Arnett, J. J. (2014). Presidential address: The emergence of emerging adulthood: A personal history. Emerging Adulthood,2(3), 155-162. Denovan, A. and Macaskill, A. (2017) Stress and subjective well-being among first year UK undergraduate students. Journal of Happiness Studies, 18, 505–525. Hunt, J., & Eisenberg, D. (2010). Mental health problems and help-seeking behavior among college students. Journal of adolescent health,46(1), 3-10. Reifman, A., Arnett, J. J., & Colwell, M. J. (2007). Emerging adulthood: Theory, assessment and application. Journal of Youth Development,2(1), 37-48. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. (2015). The European Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe (2022). Regional technical consultation on implementation of the WHO European Framework for Action on Mental Health 2021–2025 through the Pan-European Mental Health Coalition: virtual meeting, 15–16 February 2022. Table 1. DASS reliability Sample First wave of data collection (W1, 2015), participants were aged between 18 and 28 years (M=20.31 and SD=2.04). Three years later (W2, 2018), they were aged between 21 and 32 years (M=23.66;SD = 2.08). In the W1, all participants in the study were undergraduate students from different knowledge areas. In the W2, 31.5% were still undergraduate students, 39.5% had left university after graduating, 14.5% were engaged in postgraduate studies and 14.5% had completed a postgraduate degree Instruments Depression, anxiety and stress levels: The validated Spanish version (Bados et al., 2005) of the DASS-21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). 21 items (7 for each scale) rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale. Procedure W1: 902 students completed the instrument in pencil and paper format. W2: 400 students completed the questionnaire online. •More women than men remained in the study (χ² = 10.76;p= .001,Cramer's V = .08, small effect size) •Emerging adults with higher levels of stress (t= -4.98,p< .001,d=.29, small effect size) and similar levels of depression (t= -2.73;p= .006;d= .17, negligible effect size) and anxiety (t= - 1.94;p= .052).