The Longitudinal Interplay Between Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms During Late Childhood: Cross-Lagged Panel...

Loneliness and depression are interrelated constructs that significantly impact adolescents' mental health. Understanding their interplay, particularly at the symptom level, is critical for developing effective interventions.

To examine longitudinal relationships between loneliness and depressive symptoms during late childhood, aiming to identify symptom-level interactions and directional effects.

A total of 4333 children (M_age = 11.06, SD = 0.73; 50.8% girls) from the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults survey participated, with data collected over two years.

A cross-lagged panel network (CLPN) model was employed to analyze symptom-level associations between loneliness and depressive symptoms. This approach combines network analysis and cross-lagged panel modeling, allowing for the estimation of both autoregressive effects (stability of symptoms over time) and cross-lagged effects (directional relationships between symptoms across time points).

The longitudinal network suggests the following: (1) a reciprocal link between loneliness and both sadness and parental pressure; (2) a forward effect of loneliness on anxiety and being busy; (3) the loneliness-reducing effect of prior happiness and loneliness-increasing effect of boredom.

The findings highlight the complex interplay between loneliness and depressive symptoms, emphasizing reciprocal and unidirectional effects at the symptom level. These insights underscore the need for targeted, symptom-focused interventions to address loneliness and its impact on adolescent mental health.