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Associations between Social Support from Family, Friends, and Teachers and depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

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Abstract

Approximately 20% of adolescents develop depressive symptoms. Family, friends, and teachers are crucial sources of social support for adolescents, but it is unclear whether social support impacts adolescents directly (principle-effect model) or by moderating the effect of stress (stress-buffer model) and whether each source of social support remains meaningful when their influence is studied simultaneously. To help fill this gap, we followed 1452 Australian students (average age at enrollment = 13.1, SD = 0.5; range: 11–16 years; 51.9% female) for 5 years. Based on our findings, each source of support is negatively related to depressive symptoms one year later when studied independently but when combined, only family and teacher support predicted depressive symptoms. Family support in all grades and teacher support in grade 8 to 10 but not in grade 11 directly impacted adolescent depressive symptoms 1 year later. Family support in grades 8 and 11 also buffered against the negative impact of stress on depressive symptoms one year later. Based on the unexpected findings, the most important limitations seem to be that the used instruments do not allow for a separation of different groups of friends (e.g., classmates, same-gender peers, romantic partners), types of social support, and stress. In addition, the high, nonrandom attrition rate with adolescents reporting less social support, more stressful events, a higher frequency of depressive symptoms, and/or being of Torres Strait Islander or Aboriginal background limits the generalizability of our findings. Summarized, our findings demonstrate that adolescents facing stress might benefit more from family support compared to their peers without stressful life events and that friends may have a weaker presence in adolescent lives than expected.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the adolescents, parents, and teachers involved in this project.

Author Contributions

M.S. and S.S. were lead investigators for the beyondblue schools study; J.S. was a project manager for the beyondblue schools study; J.S., M.S., and S.S. were responsible for its design and implementation; J.S. and S.S. also developed the prevention program and evaluation materials; J.S. also oversaw data collection in one of the participating states; B.C., P.P., and S.B. drafted the manuscript; P.P. performed the statistical analysis; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by beyondblue and the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Louisville, Louisville, USA

    Patrick Pössel, Shelby M. Burton & Bridget Cauley

  2. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Michael G. Sawyer

  3. Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

    Susan H. Spence

  4. University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

    Jeanie Sheffield

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  1. Patrick Pössel
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  2. Shelby M. Burton
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  3. Bridget Cauley
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  4. Michael G. Sawyer
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Correspondence to Patrick Pössel.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Pössel, P., Burton, S.M., Cauley, B. et al. Associations between Social Support from Family, Friends, and Teachers and depressive Symptoms in Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 47, 398–412 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0712-6

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