Stress has been associated with depression in the past, but large enough, prospective studies to demonstrate this relationship still have to be produced.

To investigate the relationship between stressful life events and depressive symptomatology in a large sample of adolescents, in a prospective setting.

9032 adolescents that participated in all the waves of the SEYLE project were included. Mean age of our study group was 14.84 ± 0.88 years. 56.5% of the participants were females. We used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to assess the depressive symptomatology and Kendler's Life Events Checklist to assess the life events. We build several multivariate linear regression models controlling for age, sex and baseline depressive symptomatology.

Total number of life events occurred in the previous 12 months seems to be significantly related to the intensity of the depressive symptomatology. Personal life events seem more closely related to depressive symptomatology than network life events. Out of the personal life events, the ones in the Interpersonal, Work (School), Marriage (Intimate relationship), and Financial categories seem to be the most important for this relationship.

Our study supports the hypothesis that life events can lead to depression in adolescents and draws attention on the most important categories of life events for this relationship.