Smoking and depressive symptoms have both been demonstrated to be associated with somatic and psychiatric outcomes. Having both risk factors may be hypothesized to increase prevalence of negative outcomes. Understanding associations of depression and smoking may inform interventions to early intervene to smoking of a depressed adolescent or detecting symptoms of mood disorders in a smoking adolescent. The prevalence of mental disorders is doubled in late adolescence compared to childhood. Of the adolescents in Munich, for example, 17% have at some point in their life met the diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder at the age of 24 years. The point prevalence of depressive symptoms is even higher, with proportions of adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms or self-reported depression reported to be as high as 30%. In adolescence also the typical gender difference occurs: depression is two times more common in females than in males.
Smoking is more common in depressed adults and adolescents than in individuals in the general population. Several longitudinal researches among adolescents have suggested that smoking predicts depressive symptoms while others have suggested that depression predicts smoking. The association between smoking and depression in adolescence may also be bidirectional.
Depression Predicts Smoking among Adolescent Girls but Not among
Boys
Sari Fr脙聝脗露jd
Last date updated on January, 2025