@article{ref1,
title="Depression, violence and cortisol awakening response: a 3-year longitudinal study in adolescents",
journal="Psychological medicine",
year="2019",
author="Yu, Rongqin and Branje, Susan J. T. and Meeus, Wim and Cowen, Philip and Fazel, Seena",
volume="49",
number="6",
pages="997-1004",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Despite evidence of links between depression and violent outcomes, potential moderators of this association remain unknown. The current study tested whether a biological marker, cortisol, moderated this association in a longitudinal sample of adolescents. <br><br>METHODS: Participants were 358 Dutch adolescents (205 boys) with a mean age of 15 years at the first measurement. Depressive symptoms, the cortisol awakening response (CAR) and violent outcomes were measured annually across 3 years. The CAR was assessed by two measures: waking cortisol activity (CAR area under the curve ground) and waking cortisol reactivity (CAR area under the curve increase). Within-individual regression models were adopted to test the interaction effects between depressive symptoms and CAR on violent outcomes, which accounted for all time-invariant factors such as genetic factors and early environments. We additionally adjusted for time-varying factors including alcohol drinking, substance use and stressful life events. <br><br>RESULTS: In this community sample, 24% of adolescents perpetrated violent behaviours over 3 years. We found that CAR moderated the effects of depressive symptoms on adolescent violent outcomes (βs ranged from -0.12 to -0.28). In particular, when the CAR was low, depressive symptoms were positively associated with violent outcomes in within-individual models, whereas the associations were reversed when the CAR was high. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the CAR should be investigated further as a potential biological marker for violence in adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0033-2917",
doi="10.1017/S0033291718001654",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291718001654"
}