2024, Kassis, Wassilis, Aksoy, Dilan, Favre, Céline Anne, Arnold, Julia, Gaugler, Stefan, Grafinger, Katharina, Artz, Sibylle, Magnuson, Doug

Introduction: To understand the family’s role in adolescents’ mental health development and the connection to neurodevelopmental disorders related to experienced parental physical abuse, we first explored resilience pathways longitudinally and secondly, connected the identified patterns to adolescents’ hair cortisol levels that are rooted in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis as the main stress response system and connected brain structure alterations. Methods: We analyzed longitudinal online questionnaire data for three consecutive high school years (from seventh to ninth grade) and four survey waves from a representative sample of n = 1609 high school students in Switzerland on violence–resilience pathways. Furthermore, we collected students’ hair samples from a subsample of n = 229 at survey wave 4. About 30% of the participating adolescents had been physically abused by their parents. Out of the overall sample, we drew a subsample of adolescents with parental abuse experiences (survey wave 1 n = 509; survey wave 2 n = 506; survey wave 3 n = 561; survey wave 4 n = 560). Results: Despite the odds, about 20–30% of adolescents who have experienced parental physical abuse escaped the family violence cycle and can be called resilient. By applying a person-oriented analytical approach via latent class and transition analysis, we longitudinally identified and compared four distinct violence–resilience patterns. We identified violence resilience as a multidimensional latent construct, which includes hedonic and eudaimonic protective and risk indicators. Because resilience should not solely be operationalized based on the lack of psychopathology, our latent construct included both feeling good (hedonic indicators such as high levels of self-esteem and low levels of depression/anxiety and dissociation) and doing well (eudaimonic indicators such as high levels of self-determination and self-efficacy as well as low levels of aggression toward peers). Discussion: The present study confirmed that higher cortisol levels significantly relate to the comorbid pattern (internalizing and externalizing symptoms), and further confirmed the presence of lasting alterations in brain structures. In this way, we corroborated the insight that when studying the resilience pathways and trajectories of abused adolescents, biological markers such as hair cortisol significantly enhance and deepen the understanding of the longitudinal mechanisms of psychological markers (e.g., self-determination, self-esteem, self-efficacy) that are commonly applied in questionnaires.

2022-12-01, Kassis, Wassilis, Janousch, Clarissa, Sidler, Petra, Aksoy, Dilan, Favre, Céline Anne, Ertanir, Beyhan, Nazari, Nabi

Adolescence is a developmental stage with high risks in terms of psychological challenges and adjustments related to subjective well-being. Thus far, the findings reported a general decrease in school-related well-being over time. We considered well-being a multidimensional and latent construct that included both feeling good and functioning well at the individual level, and focused on the interplay between hedonic and eudemonic factors. Data of = 377 high school students in Switzerland were used by conducting an online longitudinal study with two waves. Baseline data was gathered in autumn 2019 and the subsequent time point occurred 1 year later (2020; grades seven and eight). By applying a person-oriented analytical approach via latent class and latent transition analyses, we were able to identify and compare longitudinally three distinct well-being patterns and the respective trajectories. Regarding the distribution of the well-being patterns for both waves, significant changes over time were identified: particularly from wave 1 to wave 2, where there was an increase for the low and high well-being patterns, yet a decrease for the middle pattern. Comparing the stability of the respective patterns over time, the high well-being level showed the highest stability of all identified patterns. Multinomial logistic regression of covariates to the identified latent status membership established for both waves showed low but significant effects of socio-demographic variables. At wave 1, having a migration background was associated with a significant increase of being in a low versus high well-being level pattern. At wave 2, being female was associated with a significant increase of being in a low versus high and in a middle versus high well-being pattern.