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The tendency to appraise naturally occurring life events (LEs) as having high negative impact may be a predisposing factor for the development of depression and anxiety disorders. In the current study, appraisals of the negative impact of recent LEs were examined in relationship to depressive and anxiety disorders in a sample of 653 adolescents who were administered diagnostic and life stress interviews at ages 15 and 20. Participants' appraisals of the negative impact of LEs reported at age 15 were statistically adjusted using investigator-based ratings to control for objective differences across LEs. Higher appraisals of the negative impact of LEs were associated with both past and current depressive and anxiety disorders at age 15 and predicted subsequent first onsets of depressive and anxiety disorders occurring between ages 15 and 20. In addition, appraisals of the negative impact of LEs were particularly elevated among those experiencing both a depressive and anxiety disorder over the course of the study. The findings suggest that systematically elevated appraisals of the negative impact of LEs are a predisposing factor for depression and anxiety disorders and may represent a specific risk factor for co-morbid depression and anxiety in mid-adolescence and early adulthood.

The goal of the present study was to determine whether exposure to adversity in childhood contributes to a differential threshold at which stressful life events provoke depressive reactions in adolescence. In addition, to address empirical and conceptual questions about stress effects, the moderating effect of anxiety disorder history was also explored. This examination was conducted in a sample of 816 children of depressed and nondepressed mothers, who were followed from birth to age 15. Information on adversities experienced in childhood was collected both from mothers during the first five years of their youth's life and from the youths themselves at age 15, and included information on the mother's relationship with her partner, maternal psychopathology, as well as youth-reported abuse. Results indicated that youths with both greater exposure to adversity in childhood and a history of an anxiety disorder displayed increased depressive severity following low levels of episodic stress compared to youths with only one or neither of these risk factors. The results are speculated to reflect the possibility that early anxiety disorders associated with exposure to adversity in childhood may be a marker of dysregulated stress responses, and may help to account for the comorbidity of depression and anxiety in some individuals.