The natural history of internalizing behaviours from adolescence to emerging adulthood: Findings from the Australian Temperament Project

Abstract

Background The aims of the study were to describe the patterning and persistence of anxiety and depressive symptoms from adolescence to young adulthood and to examine long-term developmental relationships with earlier patterns of internalizing behaviours in childhood. Method We used parallel processes latent growth curve modelling to build trajectories of internalizing from adolescence to adulthood, using seven waves of follow-ups (ages 11-27 years) from 1406 participants of the Australian Temperament Project. We then used latent factors to capture the stability of maternal reported child internalizing symptoms across three waves of early childhood follow-ups (ages 5, 7 and 9 years), and exa..