The Pathway of Internalizing and Externalizing Problems from Childhood to Adolescence: A Prospective Study from Age 7 to 14–16 in Korea

• Published in: Community mental health journal 2012-06, Vol.48 (3), p.384-391
• Main Authors: Shin, Yun-Mi, Sung, Min-Je, Lim, Ki-Young, Park, Kyung-Soon, Cho, Sun-Mi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adults; Age; Anxiety; Behavior; Child; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child Behavior Disorders - diagnosis; Child Behavior Disorders - etiology; Child Behavior Disorders - psychology; Child Development; Child psychology; Childhood; Children; Children & youth; Community and Environmental Psychology; Criminal investigations; Depression; Externalizing problems; Families & family life; Family structure; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gender; Girls; Humans; Internal-External Control; Internalizing problems; Longitudinal studies; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Mental health; Models, Statistical; Original Paper; Parents & parenting; Personality Assessment; Prospective Studies; Psychiatry; Psychopathology; Questionnaires; Republic of Korea; Risk Factors; Self esteem; Sex Factors; Social research; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers
• ISSN: 0010-3853; 1573-2789
• DOI: 10.1007/s10597-011-9468-8

This study prospectively investigated developmental psychopathology pathway from the age of 7 to ages 14–16. The subjects (N = 1,857) were evaluated using the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist and reassessed using the Korean Youth Self Report. In path analyses, total problems, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems in childhood associated significantly with problems in adolescence. In particular, childhood externalizing problems associated with adolescent externalizing problems, for both genders. However, our results differ from those of previous studies in that internalizing problems showed a restrictive stability by gender and in that early externalizing problems correlated negatively with later internalizing problems for girls. In the syndrome scales analyses, we confirmed that some syndromes showed heterotypic pathways, despite the general continuity of the developmental psychopathology. The importance of Anxiety/Depression and Attention problems in childhood suggested that adolescent difficulties are a consequence of an accumulation of such risk factors.