Life stress and Depressive Mood in Adolescents: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Spirituality

Adolescents experience tremendous life stresses and are vulnerable to depressive mood. It’s imperative to identify possible risk factors. However, resilience perspective indicated that we should pay more attention to protective factors that could mitigate the impact of risk. Spirituality is increasingly studied in the western countries. It helped to reduce the effect of risk on individual’s mental health. Related research was limited in Taiwan, where this study was conducted. This study intends to examine the contribution of parent-adolescence conflict, family economic stress, peer relationship stress, academic expectation stress to depressive mood among adolescents in Taiwan.
The multi-stage cluster sampling method was used. Data were collected by self-reported questionnaires administered in the group setting. A total of 1,307 Taiwanese students from ten through twelve grades participated in this study. 1,204 questionnaires with complete information were included in multiple regression analyses. Result indicates that after controlling for gender, age, and self-esteem, life stresses and spirituality were significantly associated with adolescent depressive mood. Spirituality moderated the effect of peer relationship stress on adolescent depressive mood. Findings suggest that spirituality is an important concept to help adolescents from being affected by life stressors. Helping professionals should incorporate this concept into their work with depressive adolescents.