Longitudinal Associations Between Depressive Symptoms and Quality of Romantic Relationships in Late Adolescence.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Joosten, Daniek H. J. Nelemans, Stefanie A. Meeus, Wim Branje, Susan
Abstract	While youth with higher levels of depressive symptoms appear to have lower quality romantic relationships, little is known about longitudinal associations for both men and women. Therefore, this study used longitudinal dyadic design to examine both concurrent and longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and positive as well as negative aspects of romantic relationship quality across two waves one- or two-years apart. The sample consisted of 149 Dutch stable heterosexual couples (149 females and 142 males participated at T1) in a stable romantic relationship in late adolescence with a mean age of 20.43 years old at the first wave. Actor-Partner Interdependence models were used to examine potential bidirectional associations over time between depressive symptoms and romantic relationship quality, above and beyond potential concurrent associations and stability of the constructs over time, from the perspective of both romantic partners. Results consistently indicated that men and women who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms perceived less positive aspects (intimacy and support) and more negative aspects (conflict) in their romantic relationship over time. In addition, unexpectedly, when men and women perceived more positive relationship aspects, their partners reported higher levels of depressive symptoms over time. These findings stress that depressive symptoms can interfere with the formation of high-quality romantic relationships.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC8881252&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	00472891
Journal	Journal of Youth and Adolescence [J Youth Adolesc]
Volume Number	51
DOI	10.1007/s10964-021-01511-2
PubMed Central reference number	PMC8881252
Issue Number	3
PubMed reference number	34661787
e-ISSN	15736601
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2021-10-18
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2021
Subject Keyword	Depressive symptoms Late adolescence Romantic relationships Positive and Negative relationship quality Longitudinal
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education Developmental and Educational Psychology Social Sciences Social Psychology