Life Stress and Depressive Mood in Late Adolescence: Exploring the Moderating Effects of Spirituality

Adolescents experience tremendous life stresses and are vulnerable to depressive mood. A resilience perspective stresses the importance of identifying protective factors that could mitigate the impact of risk. Spirituality is increasingly studied in the western countries and has been shown to reduce the effect of risk on individual’s mental health. Related research was limited in Taiwan, where this study was conducted. This study intends to examine the contribution of parent-adolescence conflict, family economic stress, peer relationship stress, academic expectation stress to depressive mood among adolescents in Taiwan. Data was collected from self-report questionnaires administered to 1,306 Taiwanese students from grades 10 to 12. 1,207 questionnaires with complete information were included in multiple regression analyses. Result indicates that after controlling for gender, age, and self-esteem, life stresses and spirituality were significantly associated with adolescent depressive mood. Spirituality moderated the effect of peer relationship stress on adolescent depressive mood. Findings suggest that spirituality is an important concept to help adolescents from being affected by life stressors. Helping professionals should incorporate this concept into their work with depressive adolescents.