(PS9-C59) Impact of School Transition Stressors on Adolescents’ Symptoms of Social Anxiety and Depression: Repetitive Negative Thinking as a Potential Mediator

Adolescents’ lives undergo considerable reorganization during school transitions, which require establishing new peer relationships and participating in more demanding academic activities. Yet, little is known about how school-transition stressors affect adolescents’ feelings of social anxiety and depression, both of which are prevalent in high-school-aged youth and interfere with their current and future academic and interpersonal functioning. This study examined school-transition stressors as predictors of adolescents’ social anxiety and depressive symptoms over the course of their first year in high school. We also evaluated the extent to which repetitive negative thinking (RNT) (or the tendency to engage in worry and rumination) served as a transdiagnostic mediating pathway, as prior research implicates RNT in the development of both anxiety and depression. Finally, we conducted the study with a population of predominantly Hispanic/Latinx youth, as such youth are underrepresented in school transition research and are at high risk for school dropout. Participants were 522 adolescents (M_age=14.23; 58% female; 91% Hispanic/Latinx) attending high school in a large metropolitan area of the southeast USA, who completed surveys near the beginning, middle, and end of their transition year to high school. At T1 (October), adolescents reported transition stressors related to school performance, peer pressure, teacher interaction, and school/leisure conflict along with current symptoms of social anxiety and depression. At T2 (February), students reported levels of RNT. At T3 (May), students again reported symptoms of social anxiety and depression. Structural equation modeling (SEM) examined associations between transition stressors (T1) and symptoms of social anxiety and depression (T3) over the school year, and whether RNT mediated these associations (controlling for gender, ethnicity, and T1 symptoms). The SEM model fit the data well (χ² = 2.33, p = .13, RMSEA = .05, CFI = .999, SRMR = .01), and revealed that early school performance stressors predicted increased social anxiety and depressive symptoms at the end of the school year. Additionally, RNT mediated these associations. Furthermore, baseline peer pressure predicted youths’ depressive symptoms at T3. In conclusion, school stressors during the high school transition affect youth’s emotional functioning and may have a lasting adverse impact. Cognitive behavioral (CB) interventions that focus on stress reduction may facilitate adolescents’ transition to a new school. Further, RNT may be an especially important transdiagnostic factor to target in CB treatment and preventive interventions to reduce adolescents’ social anxiety and depressive symptomology over the transition to high school. Such efforts also may help to reduce the likelihood of school dropout, especially for those of Hispanic/Latinx backgrounds.