Association between stressful life events and depression, anxiety, and quality of life among urban adolescents and young adults in Latin America (Priebe, 2024)

Diez-Canseco F., Carbonel A., Bernabe-Ortiz A., Olivar N., Gómez-Restrepo C., Toyama M., Uribe-Restrepo JM., Brusco LI., Hidalgo-Padilla L., Ramirez-Meneses D., Carbonetti FL., Ariza-Salazar K., Sureshkumar DS., Fung C., Priebe S. 

Frontiers in psychology [Front Psychol] 2024 Nov 07; Vol. 15, pp. 1466378. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Nov 07 (Print Publication: 2024).

Available online at this link 

Background: Latin American youth have a high prevalence of mental health disorders and face major socioeconomic and public safety problems. This study assesses the association between stressful life events (SLEs) and depression, anxiety, and quality of life among adolescents and young adults from deprived neighbourhoods of Latin America. Methods: The sample consisted of 2,402 participants, between adolescents (15–16 years) and young adults (20–24 years), from Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Lima (Peru), assessed in 2021–2022 and recruited in education and community settings and social media. We evaluated the most frequent recent and distant SLEs (occurred in the previous year and more than a year ago, respectively), the relationship between SLEs and severity of depression (PHQ-8), anxiety (GAD-7), and quality of life (MANSA), and we tested for differences by gender and age group.