Age, Period, and Cohort Trends in Mood Disorder Indicators and Suicide-Related Outcomes in a Nationally Representative Dataset, 2005–2017

By Jean M. Twenge, A. Cooper, Thomas E. Joiner, Mary E. Duffy, Sarah G. Binau. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2019

1,169 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Drawing from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; N = 611,880), a nationally representative survey of U.S. adolescents and adults, we assess age, period, and cohort trends in mood disorders and suicide-related outcomes since the mid-2000s. Rates of major depressive episode in the last year increased 52% 2005–2017 (from 8.7% to 13.2%) among adolescents aged 12 to 17 and 63% 2009–2017 (from 8.1% to 13.2%) among young adults 18–25. Serious psychological distress in the last month and suicide-related outcomes (suicidal ideation, plans, attempts, and deaths by suicide) in the last year also increased among young adults 18–25 from 2008–2017 (with a 71% increase in serious psychological distress), with less consistent and weaker increases among adults ages 26 and over. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses separating the effects of age, period, and birth cohort suggest the trends among adults are primarily due to cohort, with a steady rise in mood disorder and suicide-related outcomes between cohorts born from the early 1980s (Millennials) to the late 1990s (iGen). Cultural trends contributing to an increase in mood disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors since the mid-2000s, including the rise of electronic communication and digital media and declines in sleep duration, may have had a larger impact on younger people, creating a cohort effect.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ea006a9a8a371e96c2eb486c5202f9bba292e73b

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In Clinical Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

• The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations (2024, background): “Observed changes in the prevalence of mental health prob­ lems in children and young people have been attributed to both period 21 and cohort 22 effects.”
• Emotional distress in young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence of risk and resilience from a longitudinal cohort study (2020, background): “…exploring considering the pre-pandemic trends of increasing stress and internalizing symptoms among contemporary Western youth in recent decades (Keyes, Gary, O ’ Malley, Hamilton, & Schulenberg, 2019; Twenge, Cooper, Joiner, Duffy, & Binau, 2019), and the need for measures to reverse these trends.”