The role of resilience in the development of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder after trauma in children and adolescents.

This investigation, conducted within the Texas Childhood Trauma Research Network, investigated the prospective relationships between resiliency and emergent internalizing symptoms among trauma-exposed youth. The cohort encompassed 1262 youth, aged 8-20, from twelve health-related institutions across Texas, who completed assessments at baseline and one- and six-month follow-ups for resiliency, symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other demographic and clinical characteristics. At baseline, greater resilience was positively associated with older age, male (vs female) sex assigned at birth, and history of mental health treatment. Unadjusted for covariates, higher baseline resilience was associated with greater prospective depression and PTSD symptoms but not anxiety symptoms. Upon adjusting for demographic and clinical factors, higher baseline resilience was no longer associated with depression, PTSD, or anxiety symptoms. Our analyses demonstrate that the predictive value of resilience on psychopathology is relatively small compared to more readily observable clinical and demographic factors. These data suggest a relatively minor prospective role of resilience in protecting against internalizing symptoms among trauma-exposed youth and highlight the importance of controlling for relevant youth characteristics when investigating a protective effect of resilience on internalizing symptoms.

Psychometric evaluation of the 9-item Concise Health Risk Tracking - Self-Report (CHRT-SR9) (a measure of suicidal risk) in adolescent psychiatric outpatients in the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Research Network (TX-YDSRN).

BACKGROUND: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the 9-item Concise Health Risk Tracking Self-Report (CHRT-SR9), a measure of suicidality, in adolescent psychiatric outpatients. METHODS: Altogether, 933 depressed or suicidal adolescents (12-20 years of age), receiving treatment at psychiatric outpatient clinics in Texas, completed the 16-item CHRT-SR at baseline and one month later. CHRT-SR9 was extracted from CHRT-SR16 using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Sex and age measurement invariance, classical test theory, item response theory (IRT), and concurrent validity analyses (against the suicidal ideation Item 9 of Patient Health Questionnaire-Adolescent (PHQ-A)) were conducted. RESULTS: The CHRT-SR9 demonstrated excellent model fit with four factors (pessimism, helplessness, despair, and suicidal thoughts). Measurement invariance was upheld. Acceptable item-total correlations (0.56-0.80) and internal consistency (Spearman-Brown 0.78-0.89) were revealed. IRT analyses showed a unidimensional instrument with excellent item performance. Using the CHRT-SR9 total score as a measure of overall suicidality and comparing it against levels of PHQ-A Item 9, the mean (standard deviation) of CHRT-SR9 total score was 8.64 (SD = 5.97) for no-risk (0 on Item 9), 17.05 (SD = 5.00) for mild, 23.16 (SD = 5.05) for moderate, and 26.96 (SD = 5.24) for severe-risk (3 on Item 9). Significant differences (p-value<0.0001) indicated that CHRT-SR9 total score distinguished between levels of suicidal risk. Furthermore, CHRT-SR9 was sensitive to change over a one-month period. LIMITATIONS: Whether CHRT-SR9 predicts actual suicidal attempts in adolescents is not well defined. CONCLUSION: The CHRT-SR9 is an easy-to-administer, user-friendly self-report with good psychometric qualities which makes it an excellent screening measure of suicidal risk in adolescent psychiatric outpatients.