Self-perceived rhythmicity in affective and cognitive functions is related to psychiatric symptoms in adolescents

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between self-perceived rhythms measured using the Mood Rhythm Instrument for adolescents (MRhI-Y) and depressive and psychiatric symptoms measured with the Children’s Depressive Instrument (CDI) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). In this study, 186 adolescents were recruited in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. We performed a Spearman correlation analysis to evaluate the relationships between quantitative variables. All variables that had a statistically significant correlation were included in ANOVA multiple regression models. The dependent variables in the multiple regression analyses were CDI score and total and emotional scores on the SDQ. We found that only Cognitive self-perceived rhythmicity contributed significantly to the first multiple regression with CDI as the outcome variable. The second regression with SDQ Emotional score as the outcome variable showed that female sex, age, and self-perceived affective rhythmicity contributed significantly to the model. The third regression with SDQ total score as the outcome variable showed that chronotype, self-perceived cognitive symptoms, and affective rhythmicity contributed significantly to the model. In conclusion, we found that lower self-perceived rhythmicity in cognitive factors and higher self-perceived rhythmicity in affective factors were related to presence and intensity of psychiatric and depressive symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Biological rhythms
• cognitive rhythms
• affective rhythms
• chronobiology
• mood rhythm
• depressive symptoms
• circadian rhythm

Acknowledgements

This study was partly funded by the following research funding agencies Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa – Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (FIPE-HCPA), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and Produtividade em Pesquisa – Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (PQ-CNPq).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All individuals who agreed to participate did not sign the informed dissent. The study was approved by the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre ethics committee and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent for publication

Consent for publication was obtained from participants, since they agreed to participate and did not sign the informed dissent.

Additional information

Funding

This study was partly supported by the Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa – Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (FIPE-HCPA), CAPES, PQ-CNPq.