中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: The ecological system model posits that the depressogenic risk factors that exist in a person's ecosystem exert a negative impact on an individual's mental health. Previous researchers have also proposed analysis of the cumulative effects of individual factors in order to better capture the impact of a cluster of risk factors. This study investigated the association between depressive mood and a group of risk factors that are known to be salient among adolescents in Taiwan. The risk factors investigated included gender, family economic stress, parent-adolescent conflict, negative peer relationships, and academic expectation stress. The cumulative risk index was used as a proxy for investigating the impact of multiple risk factors. Method: A multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to select respondents. Self-report questionnaires were completed by 1,307 students in high schools, vocational high schools, and junior colleges, but only 1,196 questionnaires with complete answers were entered into statistical analyses. Cross-tabulation, oneway ANOVA, trend analysis, Pearson correlation, hierarchical linear regression models, and multiple logistic regressions were used to test the hypotheses of individual and cumulative effects. Results: The linear regression analyses indicated that each risk factor was a significant predictor of the adolescents' depressive mood. Although the hypothesis of cumulative effects was verified, the findings on the triggering effect varied with the analytical approach. Conclusions: Given the evidence for cumulative effects of multiple risk factors, mental health professionals need to use the ecological perspective in assessing depressogenic risk factors and designing intensive services to address multiple risk factors.