Resumo

OSORIO CASTANO, César Augusto; ORTIZ, Eliana; AVENDANO-PRIETO, Bertha Lucía  e  HERNANDEZ-POZO, María del Rocío. Meaning in life and its association with anxiety and depression in young people. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2022, vol.39, n.2, pp.355-368.  Epub 15-Abr-2022. ISSN 1668-7027.  http://dx.doi.org/10.16888/interd.2022.39.2.22.

Around 300 million people in the world suffer from depression and anxiety. Both have become, according to the main organizations, one of the first causes of disability and lost work years on the planet. Not to mention that depression is one of the main antecedents of deaths by suicide. Both have a special impact on young populations and adolescents. In Colombia the data is not more encouraging, around 53 % of the young people has at least one symptom of anxiety and 80 % have at least one symptom of depression. Given this data, anxiety and depression constitute important health problems that require sufficient attention. On the other hand, the meaning in life has become an important salutogenic variable in younger populations. Recent research has shown that the meaning in life is related to the reduction of risk behaviors, such as the consumption of psychoactive substances, and is a protective factor against different health problems, ranging from cardiovascular events to the reduction of the appearance of anxious and depressive symptoms. Based on the above, the objective of this study was to identify how the meaning in life is associated with anxiety and depression in adolescents and young people. The data of 596 Colombian participants whose ages ranged between 18 and 24 years (M = 21; SD = 1.74; 68 % women and 32 % men) were analyzed, the only condition to participate was knowing how to read and write. The Dimensional Meaning Life Scale and the Scale for Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS-21) were used. Firstly, significant differences were found in the meaning in life scores in the participants who reported a diagnosis of disease, consumption of psychoactive substances and socioeconomic condition. The highest meaning scores were obtained by people who did not have a diagnosis of medical or psychological illness, who did not consume any psychoactive substances, and people in the highest socioeconomic status. Likewise, there were differences for anxiety and depression, people with a diagnosis of disease and who consume psychoactive substances had higher scores for both anxiety and depression. Women had higher anxiety scores, and people from the lowest socioeconomic conditions had the highest scores for depression. A model resulting from an analysis of structural equations based on partial least squares is presented. The model had adequate fit indices (NFI = .84; SRMR = .06). The meaning in life was negatively and significantly associated with anxiety and depression. The path coefficients of the latent variable meaning in life show an impact of -.49 on anxiety and -.71 on depression. According to the R squared values, the meaning of life explains 24 % of the presence of anxiety symptoms and around 51 % of depression. Regarding the measurement model, both the Dimensional Meaning in Life Scale and the Scale for Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS-21) showed excellent adjustments in the measurement and operationalization of the latent variables. The results found present implications for research, and they also constitute empirical support to include the variable in intervention and prevention programs that can be objectively evaluated and reduce anxiety and depression scores in adolescents and young people, which would also allow to reduce all the negative consequences associated with both pathologies. Other projections and limitations associated with what was found in this research are discussed.

Palavras-chave : meaning in life; anxiety; depression; adolescents and young people.

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