An extensive literature has shown a strong connection between maternal parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. However, it has been difficult for previous research to map a dynamic concurrent and prospective relationships within and between types of parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. The present study addressed these issues using a network analysis approach and a longitudinal design. This study involved 591 Chinese adolescents (249 males; mean age at T1 = 13.53) and their mothers (mean age at T1 = 39.71) at two time points (T1 and T2) with eighteen months apart. Mothers reported their parenting practices including warmth, monitoring, inductive reasoning, hostility, and harshness, while adolescents reported their mental health problems including anxiety, depression, aggression, and conduct problems. Network analysis was conducted for contemporaneous networks at T1 and T2 and temporal networks from T1 to T2. The contemporaneous networks revealed the negative association between monitoring and conduct problems served as the main pathway through which parenting practices and adolescent mental health mutually influenced each other, and further, warmth was the most influential parenting practice on adolescent mental health. The temporal network revealed that maternal hostility exerted the most influence on adolescent mental health problems, whereas adolescents’ depression was most influenced by maternal parenting practices. Moreover, maternal hostility was most predicted by maternal harshness. This study presents a novel perspective to gain a better understanding of the dynamics between and within maternal parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. Findings highlight maternal harshness and warmth as potential prevention and intervention targets for adolescent mental health problems.

Major depressive disorder is associated with an increased risk of suicide. The aim of the present study was to compare changes in event-related potentials (ERP) of suicide attempters and non-attempters with major depressive disorder during an implicit emotion processing task. The results showed that the stimuli had a clear effect on the N2 and P3 amplitudes for both suicide attempters and non-attempters. More importantly, suicide attempters exhibited significantly higher P3 amplitudes between negative and neutral conditions than non-attempters. This could indicate that suicide attempters have a lower information burden and a weaker inhibitory process when processing emotional stimuli than non-attempters.

Background: The prevalence of problematic smartphone use (PSU) has been increasing among adolescents in recent years, often co-occurring with depressive symptoms, which poses additional challenges to adolescent mental health. Despite growing concern, the mechanisms underlying the co-occurrence of PSU and depression remain poorly understood. To address this gap, the current study employed cross-lagged panel network analysis to investigate the temporal relationships between specific symptoms of PSU and depressive symptoms over time. Methods: Data were collected at three time points (T1, T2, and T3), with six-month intervals between each wave. Participants self-reported their levels of depressive symptoms and PSU. A total of 558 participants (52.5% male; mean age at T1 = 13.83, SD = 0.78) were included in the final analysis. Two cross-lagged panel networks were constructed to examine the bidirectional relationships between depressive symptoms and PSU from T1 to T2 and from T2 to T3. Results: In the T1-T2 network, Withdrawal from PSU and Fatigue from depressive symptoms not only emerged as the most influential symptoms but also acted as bridge symptoms linking the co-occurrence of these two mental health issues. In the T2-T3 network, the structure of network became denser, with the most influential symptoms primarily stemming from depressive symptoms, such as Sleep Disturbance and Feeling of Failure. Negative Life Consequences from PSU and Fatigue from depressive symptoms served as key bridge symptoms. Conclusions: The findings provide valuable insights into the temporal dynamics underlying the co-occurrence of PSU and depressive symptoms during adolescence, with Fatigue appearing to play a significant role in linking these two mental health issues over time. Future studies should account for individual differences in how symptoms evolve over time and explore how these symptoms develop and persist at the individual level.

Background: Psychological distress is highly prevalent and has a severe impact on the quality of life among breast cancer survivors. This type of distress is associated with cognitive failure. However, previous studies have focused solely on the total scale scores of these two concepts while ignoring the unique relationship between specific components. In the present study, we utilized network analysis to explore the relationship between psychological distress and cognitive failure in breast cancer survivors.Methods: The network analysis approach was adopted to estimate the regularized partial correlation network in a cross-sectional sample of 409 breast cancer survivors. All participants were assessed using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale and the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire. The Gaussian Graphical Model was employed to estimate the network, centrality indices, and edge weights, providing a description of the characteristics of the network.Results: The results indicated that anxiety–stress and depression–stress were the strongest edges in the community of psychological distress. Distractibility–memory was the strongest edge in the community of cognitive failure. Distractibility and memory were the most central nodes, with the highest expected influence in the network. Depression and motor coordination acted as important bridge nodes with the highest bridge expected influence.Conclusion: Distractibility and memory in cognitive failure played important roles in activating and maintaining the relationship network. Motor coordination was identified as the crucial pathway for the impact of cognitive failure on psychological distress. Interventions targeting these specific issues might be more effective in improving cognitive failure and reducing psychological distress among breast cancer survivors.