"my life is not going to have any meaning." personality and vulnerability to depression in Spanish youth

Abstract

Adolescents are a group at risk of developing depressive disorders, faced with a multitude of psychosocial circumstances and the re-sources available to meet vital needs. The risk of depression is associated with high avoidance of harm, low self-direction, and low persistence. The aim of the work was to explore the differences between various personality profiles on elements of depressive process (presence of distress and absence of eustress) in adolescents. The presence of depression was evaluated through the Multicultural Inventory of Depression and personality through the Temperament and Character Questionnaire in a total of 229 participants, (n = 121 males) (M age = 14.79; SD = 1.61). The exploratory cluster analyses showed the existence of 3 adolescent profiles based on temperament and character, being those adolescents with low persistence and self-transcendence, with high self-directedness, harm avoidance and rewards dependency who showed the highest indicators of depression. Specifically, significant differences were found in distress scores with adolescents in profile 3 having the highest indicators of state distress (F (224, 4) = 21.73; p