The effects of family support and smartphone-derived homestay on daily mood and depression among sexual and gender minority adolescents.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescents are at elevated risk for depression. This risk is especially pronounced among adolescents whose home environment is unsupportive or nonaffirming, as these adolescents may face familial rejection due to their identity. Therefore, it is critical to better understand the mechanisms underlying this risk by probing temporally sensitive associations between negative mood and time spent in potentially hostile home environments. The current study included adolescents (N = 141; 43% SGM; 13-18 years old), oversampled for depression history, who completed clinical interviews assessing lifetime psychiatric history and depression severity as well as self-report measures of social support. Participants also installed an app on their personal smartphones, which assessed their daily mood and geolocation-determined mobility patterns over a 6-month follow-up period. Over the 6-month follow-up period, SGM adolescents reported elevated depression severity and lower daily mood relative to non-SGM youth. Interestingly, SGM adolescents who reported low family support experienced lower daily mood than non-SGM adolescents, particularly on days when they spent more time at home. Current findings reinforce evidence for disparities in depression severity among SGM adolescents and highlight family support as a key factor. Specifically, more time spent in home environments with low family support was associated with worse mood among SGM adolescents. These results underscore the need for clinical interventions to support SGM youth, particularly interventions that focus on familial relationships and social support within the home environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Detecting adolescent depression through passive monitoring of linguistic markers in smartphone communication.

BACKGROUND: Cross sectional studies have identified linguistic correlates of major depressive disorder (MDD) in smartphone communication. However, it is unclear whether monitoring these linguistic characteristics can detect when an individual is experiencing MDD, which would facilitate timely intervention. METHODS: Approximately 1.2 million messages typed into smartphone social communication apps (e.g. texting, social media) were passively collected from 90 adolescents with a range of depression severity over a 12-month period. Sentiment (i.e. positive vs. negative valence of text), proportions of first-person singular pronouns (e.g. 'I'), and proportions of absolutist words (e.g. 'all') were computed for each message and converted to weekly aggregates temporally aligned with weekly MDD statuses obtained from retrospective interviews. Idiographic, multilevel logistic regression models tested whether within-person deviations in these linguistic features were associated with the probability of concurrently meeting threshold for MDD. RESULTS: Using more first-person singular pronouns in smartphone communication relative to one's own average was associated with higher odds of meeting threshold for MDD in the concurrent week (OR = 1.29; p = .007). Sentiment (OR = 1.07; p = .54) and use of absolutist words (OR = 0.99; p = .90) were not related to weekly MDD. CONCLUSIONS: Passively monitoring use of first-person singular pronouns in adolescents' smartphone communication may help detect MDD, providing novel opportunities for early intervention.