ArticlePsychological medicine2023
Tracing the origins of midlife despair: association of psychopathology during adolescence with a syndrome of despair-related maladies at midlife.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Longer residence in disadvantaged neighborhoods predicts both a syndrome of despair and deaths of despair: Complementary evidence from nationwide register and birth-cohort studies.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2026Article
- Parental Diseases of Despair and Suicidal Events in Their Children.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- The Role of Despair in Predicting Self-Destructive Behaviors.Population research and policy review · 2025Article
- Midlife diseases of despair and cardiometabolic risk: testing shared origins in adolescent psychopathology.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Suicides, drug poisonings, and alcohol-related deaths cluster with health and social disadvantage in 4.1 million citizens from two nations.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Effects of three prophylactic interventions on French middle-schoolers' mental health: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.BMC psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMidlife adults are experiencing a crisis of deaths of despair (i.e. deaths from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease). We tested the hypothesis that a syndrome of despair-related maladies at midlife is preceded by psychopathology during adolescence.
methodsParticipants are members of a representative cohort of 1037 individuals born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972-73 and followed to age 45 years, with 94% retention. Adolescent mental disorders were assessed in three diagnostic assessments at ages 11, 13, and 15 years. Indicators of despair-related maladies across four domains - suicidality, substance misuse, sleep problems, and pain - were assessed at age 45 using multi-modal measures including self-report, informant-report, and national register data.
resultsWe identified and validated a syndrome of despair-related maladies at midlife involving suicidality, substance misuse, sleep problems, and pain. Adults who exhibited a more severe syndrome of despair-related maladies at midlife tended to have had early-onset emotional and behavioral disorders [
conclusionsMidlife adults who exhibited a more severe syndrome of despair-related maladies tended to have had psychopathology as adolescents. Prevention and treatment of adolescent psychopathology may mitigate despair-related maladies at midlife and ultimately reduce deaths of despair.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.