Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:56:32.692Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Taxometric evidence of a dimensional latent structure for depression in an epidemiological sample of children and adolescents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2016

R. T. Liu
R. T. Liu*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Bradley Hospital, East Providence, RI, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: R. T. Liu, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, Bradley Hospital, 1011 Veterans Memorial Parkway, East Providence, RI 02915, USA. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

A basic phenomenological question of much theoretical and empirical interest is whether the latent structure of depression is dimensional or categorical in nature. Prior taxometric studies of youth depression have yielded mixed findings. In a step towards resolving these contradictory findings, the current taxometric investigation is the first to utilize a recently developed objective index, the comparison curve fit index, to evaluate the latent structure of major depression in an epidemiological sample of children and adolescents.

Method

Data were derived from Mental Health of Children and Young People in Great Britain surveys. Participants were administered a structured diagnostic interview to assess for current depression. Parents (n = 683) were interviewed for children aged 5–16 years, and child interviews (n = 605) were conducted for those aged 11–16 years.

Results

MAMBAC (mean above minus below a cut), MAXEIG (maximum eigenvalue) and L-Mode (latent mode) analyses provided convergent support for a dimensional latent structure.

Conclusions

The current findings suggest that depression in youth is more accurately conceptualized as a continuous syndrome rather than a discrete diagnostic entity.

Keywords

Classificationcontinuitydepressionlatent structuretaxometrics
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 46 , Issue 6 , April 2016 , pp. 1265 - 1275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, AO, Green, BA, Clark, CB, Stahl, KC, McFarland, ME (2011). Latent structure of unipolar and bipolar mood symptoms. Bipolar Disorders 13, 522–536.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ambrosini, P, Bennett, DS, Cleland, CM, Haslam, N (2002). Taxonicity of adolescent melancholia: a categorical or dimensional construct? Journal of Psychiatric Research 36, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Beauchaine, TP (2003). Taxometrics and developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology 15, 501–527.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauchaine, TP, Waters, E (2003). Pseudotaxonicity in MAMBAC and MAXCOV analyses of rating-scale data: turning continua into classes by manipulating observer's expectations. Psychological Methods 8, 3–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, GW, Harris, T (1982). Fall-off in the reporting of life events. Social Psychiatry 17, 23–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J (1983). The cost of dichotomization. Applied Psychological Measurement 7, 249–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, DA (2004). Taxometrics in psychopathology research: an introduction to some of the procedures and related methodological issues. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 3–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Copeland, W, Shanahan, L, Costello, EJ, Angold, A (2011). Cumulative prevalence of psychiatric disorders by young adulthood: a prospective cohort analysis from the Great Smoky Mountains Study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 50, 252–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costello, EJ, Angold, A, Keeler, GP (1999). Adolescent outcomes of childhood disorders: the consequences of severity and impairment. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 38, 121–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fallon, T, Schwab-Stone, M (1994). Determinants of reliability in psychiatric surveys of children aged 6–12. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 35, 1391–1408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flett, GL, Vredenburg, K, Krames, L (1997). The continuity of depression in clinical and nonclinical samples. Psychological Bulletin 121, 395–416.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ford, T, Goodman, R, Meltzer, H (2003). The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey 1999: the prevalence of DSM-IV disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 42, 1203–1211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, DP (1972). The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire: A Technique for the Identification and Assessment of Non-Psychotic Psychiatric Illness. Oxford University Press: London and New York.Google Scholar
Goodman, R, Ford, T, Meltzer, H (2002). Mental health problems of children in the community: 18 month follow up. BMJ 324, 1496–1497.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, R, Ford, T, Richards, H, Gatward, R, Meltzer, H (2000). The Development And Well-Being Assessment: description and initial validation of an integrated assessment of child and adolescent psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 41, 645–655.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gotlib, IH, Lewinsohn, PM, Seeley, JR (1995). Symptoms versus a diagnosis of depression: differences in psychosocial functioning. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 63, 90–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, H, McGinnity, A, Meltzer, H, Ford, T, Goodman, R (2005). Mental Health of Children and Young People in Great Britain, 2004. Palgrave Macmillan: Houndmills, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hankin, BL, Fraley, RC, Lahey, BB, Waldman, ID (2005). Is depression best viewed as a continuum or discrete category? A taxometric analysis of childhood and adolescent depression in a population-based sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 96–110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harkness, KL, Stewart, JG, Wynne-Edwards, KE (2011). Cortisol reactivity to social stress in adolescents: role of depression severity and child maltreatment. Psychoneuroendocrinology 36, 173–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haslam, N (2003). Categorical versus dimensional models of mental disorder: the taxometric evidence. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 37, 696–704.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haslam, N, Holland, E, Kuppens, P (2012). Categories versus dimensions in personality and psychopathology: a quantitative review of taxometric research. Psychological Medicine 42, 903–920.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Helzer, JE, Kraemer, HC, Krueger, RF (2006). The feasibility and need for dimensional psychiatric diagnoses. Psychological Medicine 36, 1671–1680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, RC, Avenevoli, S, Costello, EJ, Georgiades, K, Green, JG, Gruber, MJ, He, J, Koretz, D, McLaughlin, KA, Petukhova, M, Sampson, NA, Zaslavsky, AM, Merikangas, KR (2012). Prevalence, persistence, and sociodemographic correlates of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement. Archives of General Psychiatry 69, 372–380.Google ScholarPubMed
Kessler, RC, Berglund, P, Demler, O, Jin, R, Merikangas, KR, Walters, EE (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry 62, 593–602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, DN (2008). Classification of depressive disorders in the DSM-V: proposal for a two-dimension system. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 117, 552–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, DN, Glenn, CR, Kosty, DB, Seeley, JR, Rohde, P, Lewinsohn, PM (2013). Predictors of first lifetime onset of major depressive disorder in young adulthood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 122, 1–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luby, JL, Gaffrey, MS, Tillman, R, April, LM, Belden, AC (2014). Trajectories of preschool disorders to full DSM depression at school age and early adolescence: continuity of preschool depression. American Journal of Psychiatry 171, 768–776.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luby, JL, Si, X, Belden, AC, Tandon, M, Spitznagel, E (2009). Preschool depression: homotypic continuity and course over 24 months. Archives of General Psychiatry 66, 897–905.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacCallum, RC, Zhang, S, Preacher, KJ, Rucker, DD (2002). On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables. Psychological Methods 7, 19–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maxwell, SE, Delaney, HD (1993). Bivariate median splits and spurious statistical significance. Psychological Bulletin 113, 181–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuffin, P (2008). Affective disorders. In Essential Psychiatry (ed. Murray, R. M., Kendler, K. S., McGuffin, P., Wessely, S. and Castle, D.), pp. 250–283. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehl, PE (1977). Specific etiology and other forms of strong influence: some quantitative meanings. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2, 33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehl, PE (1995). Bootstraps taxometrics: solving the classification problem in psychopathology. American Psychologist 50, 266–275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meehl, PE (2004). What's in a taxon? Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 39–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehl, PE, Golden, R (1982). Taxometric methods. In Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology (ed. Kendall, P. and Butcher, J.), pp. 127–181. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Meehl, PE, Yonce, LJ (1994). Taxometric analysis: I Detecting taxonicity with two quantitative indicators using means above and below a sliding cut (MAMBAC procedure). Psychological Reports 74, 1059–1274.Google Scholar
Meehl, PE, Yonce, LJ (1996). Taxometric analysis: II Detecting taxonicity using covariance of two quantitative indicators in successive intervals of a third indicator (MAXCOV procedure). Psychological Reports 78, 1091–1227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meltzer, H, Gatward, R, Goodman, R, Ford, T (2000). Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Great Britain. Stationery Office: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moffitt, TE, Caspi, A, Taylor, A, Kokaua, J, Milne, BJ, Polanczyk, G, Poulton, R (2010). How common are common mental disorders? Evidence that lifetime prevalence rates are doubled by prospective versus retrospective ascertainment. Psychological Medicine 40, 899–909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monck, E, Dobbs, R (1985). Measuring life events in an adolescent population: methodological issues and related findings. Psychological Medicine 15, 841–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nierenberg, AA, Rapaport, MH, Schettler, PJ, Howland, RH, Smith, JA, Edwards, D, Schneider, T, Mischoulon, D (2010). Deficits in psychological well-being and quality-of-life in minor depression: implications for DSM-V. CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics 16, 208–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pettit, JW, Hartley, C, Lewinsohn, PM, Seeley, JR, Klein, DN (2013). Is liability to recurrent major depressive disorder present before first episode onset in adolescence or acquired after the initial episode? Journal of Abnormal Psychology 122, 353–358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pietrzak, RH, Kinley, J, Afifi, TO, Enns, MW, Fawcett, J, Sareen, J (2013). Subsyndromal depression in the United States: prevalence, course, and risk for incident psychiatric outcomes. Psychological Medicine 43, 1401–1414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prisciandaro, JJ, Roberts, JE (2005). A taxometric investigation of unipolar depression in the National Comorbidity Survey. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 718–728.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richey, JA, Schmidt, NB, Lonigan, CJ, Phillips, BM, Catanzaro, SJ, Laurent, J, Gerhardstein, RR, Kotov, R (2009). The latent structure of child depression: a taxometric analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 50, 1147–1155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogler, LH, Malgady, RG, Tryon, WW (1992). Evaluation of mental health Issues of memory in the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 180, 215–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruscio, AM (2010). The latent structure of social anxiety disorder: consequences of shifting to a dimensional diagnosis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 119, 662–671.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruscio, AM, Ruscio, J (2002). The latent structure of analogue depression: should the Beck Depression Inventory be used to classify groups? Psychological Assessment 14, 135–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruscio, J (2012). Taxometric Programs for the R Computing Environment: User's Manual (http://www.tcnj.edu/~ruscio/TaxProgManual%202014-07-29.pdf). Accessed December 2015.Google Scholar
Ruscio, J, Brown, TA, Ruscio, AM (2009). A taxometric investigation of DSM-IV major depression in a large outpatient sample: interpretable structural results depend on the mode of assessment. Assessment 16, 127–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruscio, J, Haslam, N, Ruscio, AM (2006). Introduction to the Taxometric Method: A Practical Guide. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.Google Scholar
Ruscio, J, Kaczetow, W (2009). Differentiating categories and dimensions: evaluating the robustness of taxometric analyses. Multivariate Behavioral Research 44, 259–280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruscio, J, Ruscio, AM (2004). Clarifying boundary issues in psychopathology: the role of taxometrics in a comprehensive program of structural research. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 24–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruscio, J, Ruscio, AM, Meron, M (2007). Applying the bootstrap to taxometric analysis: generating empirical sampling distributions to help interpret results. Multivariate Behavioral Research 42, 349–386.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruscio, J, Walters, GD, Marcus, DK, Kaczetow, W (2010). Comparing the relative fit of categorical and dimensional latent variable models using consistency tests. Psychological Assessment 22, 5–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwab-Stone, ME, Shaffer, D, Dulcan, MK, Jensen, PS, Fisher, P, Bird, HR, Goodman, SH, Lahey, BB, Lichtman, JH, Canino, G, Rubio-Stipec, M, Rae, DS (1996). Criterion validity of the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DISC-2.3). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35, 878–888.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shaffer, D, Fisher, P, Dulcan, MK, Davies, M, Piacentini, J, Schwab-Stone, ME, Lahey, BB, Bourdon, K, Jensen, PS, Bird, HR, Canino, G, Regier, DA (1996). The NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DISC-2.3): description, acceptability, prevalence rates, and performance in the MECA Study. Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders Study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35, 865–877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slade, T (2007). Taxometric investigation of depression: evidence of consistent latent structure across clinical and community samples. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 41, 403–410.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slade, T, Andrews, G (2005). Latent structure of depression in a community sample: a taxometric analysis. Psychological Medicine 35, 489–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, A, Haaga, DAF, Arnow, BA (2001). Is clinical depression distinct from subthreshold depressive symptoms? A review of the continuity issue in depression research. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 189, 498–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Solomon, A, Ruscio, J, Seeley, JR, Lewinsohn, PM (2006). A taxometric investigation of unipolar depression in a large community sample. Psychological Medicine 36, 973–985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonuga-Barke, EJS (1998). Categorical models of childhood disorder: a conceptual and empirical analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 39, 115–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spangler, DL, Simons, AD, Monroe, SM, Thase, ME (1997). Response to cognitive–behavioral therapy in depression: effects of pretreatment cognitive dysfunction and life stress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 65, 568–575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tanur, JM (1992). Questions About Questions: Inquiries into the Cognitive Bases of Surveys. Russell Sage Foundation: New York.Google Scholar
Waller, NG, Meehl, PE (1998). Multivariate Taxometric Procedures: Distinguishing Types from Continua. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.Google Scholar
Walters, GD (2008). The latent structure of alcohol use disorders: a taxometric analysis of structured interview data obtained from male federal prison inmates. Alcohol and Alcoholism 43, 326–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walters, GD, Ruscio, J (2010). Where do we draw the line? Assigning cases to subsamples for MAMBAC, MAXCOV, and MAXEIG taxometric analyses. Assessment 17, 321–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walters, GD, Ruscio, J (2013). Trajectories of youthful antisocial behavior: categories or continua? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 41, 653–666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, JE, Horwood, LJ (2004). How accurate is recall of key symptoms of depression? A comparison of recall and longitudinal reports. Psychological Medicine 34, 1001–1011.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wesselhoeft, R, Sørensen, MJ, Heiervang, ER, Bilenberg, N (2013). Subthreshold depression in children and adolescents – a systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders 151, 7–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whisman, MA, Pinto, A (1997). Hopelessness depression in depressed inpatient adolescents. Cognitive Therapy and Research 21, 345–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widiger, TA, Edmundson, M (2014). Diagnoses, dimensions, and DSM-5. In The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology (ed. Barlow, D. H.), pp. 256–280. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Widiger, TA, Samuel, DB (2005). Diagnostic categories or dimensions? A question for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – fifth edition. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 494–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Health Organization (1992). International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10). WHO: Geneva, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Wu, P, Hoven, CW, Cohen, P, Liu, X, Moore, RE, Tiet, Q, Okezie, N, Wicks, J, Bird, HR (2001). Factors associated with use of mental health services for depression by children and adolescents. Psychiatric Services 52, 189–195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed