The impact of stress latent class membership and transitions on statutory service and alcohol use in adolescents across 33 months

Introduction

Adolescence is a period of intense physical, biological, and psychological change, and this can result in feelings of stress. We examined the development of stress in early adolescence, and further, how that development impacted on both alcohol-use behaviours and utilisation of government-provided services.

Methods

We used a shortened, 24-item version of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) to account for stress, and applied latent transition analysis to examine longitudinal change. Participants were 2230 school children (Mage = 12.5 years at time one) in Northern Irish and Scottish schools who completed a battery of questionnaires 33 months apart.

Results

We identified three stress profiles at baseline and 33 months: (a) High Stress, (b) Typical Stress, and (c) Low Stress. Stress profiles were shown to be associated with, and predict, a theoretically consistent set of outcomes, where adolescents who experienced high levels of stress also suffered from both problematic alcohol behaviours and harms, and utilised services.

Conclusions

Future studies are recommended to include more exploration into the usefulness of a multivariate conceptualising of ASQ-S scores.