Risk and Protective Factors for Depression during Adolescence

Abstract

One of the most common and incapacitating psychopathologies is depression. It has great influence and harm on people's life. During adolescence, which is a sensitive period for teenagers, the incidence of depression has brought a serious harm in the lives of teenagers. However, only few of those adolescents can receive treatments due to the high expense and the ignorance of parents. Therefore, the prevention for depression in adolescence is very important. The main purpose of this review paper is to discuss the different risk factors and protective factors for depression in adolescence, to make more people understand the occurrence of depression and to reduce the probability of depression in adolescents. From four levels, this paper discussed interpersonal risk, protective factors, intrinsic risk, and protective factors during adolescence. Interpersonal factors mainly come from parents and peers. Internal factors include self-perception, perfectionism, emotion regulation, and meaning in life. At last, an effective depression prevention measure was demonstrated. Previous studies mainly focused on the outcomes at a certain developmental stage. Future research should track the dynamic process over time. This review can provide some insights to the prevention research and practices for at-risk adolescents.