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Abstract
Background
Major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking are risk factors for the development of anxiety. However, the interactive effect between these constructs for predicting anxiety symptoms remains understudied.
Aims
This study sought to examine how major depressive disorder moderates the relationship between heavy-episodic drinking frequency and the development of anxiety symptoms in adolescence and emerging adulthood among a sample of justice-involved youth, with expectations that the salience of this relationship may differ based on life-course stage.
Methods
Several waves of the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed. Poisson regression with robust standard errors was used to test the direct and interactive effects of major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking frequency on anxiety symptoms at follow-up in adolescence and emerging adulthood separately.
Results
Results indicated that there was a significant negative interaction between major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking frequency for predicting anxiety scores in both adolescence and emerging adulthood, though the results for adolescence were more robust.
Conclusions
These results suggest youth without major depressive disorder that engage in heavy-episodic drinking may be a priority population for treating anxiety issues, but that ceiling effects may limit the impact of the behavior on anxiety on youth with major depressive disorder.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 These waves were used because MDD was only measured at waves one and ten. The subsequent waves were then utilized for dependent variables in order to establish the temporal ordering necessary for causal inference.