Chronic Stress Exposure and Generation Are Related to the P-Factor and Externalizing Specific Psychopathology in Youth

Abstract

Psychopathology is posited to be transdiagnostically linked to chronic stress. Yet efforts to understand the specificity and directionality of these links have been sparse, and the ubiquitous comorbidity of psychopathology has made the seemingly nonspecific links between psychological disorders and chronic stress difficult to interpret. The current study used a latent dimensional bifactor model of psychopathology to account for comorbidity and a multiwave prospective design to disentangle temporal associations between psychopathology and chronic stress longitudinally during the critical adolescent period for psychopathology risk and stress reactivity. A community sample of 567 youth (55.5% female, age M = 11.8 at baseline, M = 15.1 at end of study) were followed prospectively for 3 years, with chronic stress assessed with the Youth Life Stress Interview and psychopathology symptoms assessed via both self and parent report. Exposure to chronic stress predicted what is common across forms of psychopathology (the p factor), which in turn predicted generation of chronic stress over time. After accounting for comorbidity via the p factor, externalizing behaviors also had specific transactional links to chronic stress, whereas links between internalizing psychopathology and chronic stress were completely accounted for by common psychopathology. The results provide the first direct evidence that chronic stress is transdiagnostically and reciprocally linked to psychopathology, during a critical youth period for psychopathology onset and stress reactivity.

FUNDING

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH077195, 1R01MH105501 and 1R21MH102210 to B.L.H.; R01MH077178 to J.F.Y.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.

Notes

¹ Gender did not moderate stress–psychopathology links. Previous evidence, primarily with episodic stressful life events and childhood maltreatment, has found evidence for stronger stress reactivity for girls in predicting internalizing, with more limited evidence for stronger links between stress and externalizing in boys (for review, Grant et al., 2014). However, it may be that this effect is specific to acute stressful events, or to specific disorders (e.g., depression) as it did not extend to chronic stress associations with latent psychopathology factors in the current study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH077195, 1R01MH105501 and 1R21MH102210 to B.L.H.; R01MH077178 to J.F.Y.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.