The effect of school interpersonal relationship quality on adolescent depression: the role of perceived stress and OXTR gene

ABSTRACT

Based on ecological systems theory and the genetic and environmental research paradigm, the current study explored the effect of school interpersonal relationship quality (peer and teacher-student) on adolescent depression and the role of perceived stress and the OXTR gene. Based on the statistical power of previous G*E interaction studies, A follow-up survey was conducted with 603 Chinese adolescents (average age = 14.76 ± 0.72 years at the time of the initial measurement; range: 13 to 15) using a questionnaire method (Short Form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, The Chinese version of Perceived Stress Scale, short form of Friendship Quality Questionnaire and Teacher-student Relationship) and DNA typing technique. The study found that (1) school interpersonal relationship quality influenced adolescent depression; (2) perceived stress fully mediated the relationship between school interpersonal relationship quality and adolescent depression; (3) the OXTR gene rs2254298 and rs53576 polymorphisms moderated both the direct pathway and the second half of the indirect pathway. Specifically, individuals carrying the rs2254298 polymorphism A/G genotype and the rs53576 polymorphism A genotype exhibited a significantly enhanced effect of interpersonal relationship quality and perceived stress on adolescent depression, supporting the differential susceptibility model.

KEYWORDS:

• School interpersonal relationship quality
• perceived stress
• adolescent depression
• differential susceptibility model
• genetic-environmental

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their assistance during the paper submission process. The authors would like to thank Dr. Liu Y for his assistance with the blood sample extraction. Thanks also to Xiuru Liu, Xingxing Yao and Zhen He for their assistance in data acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

Zihao Zeng participated in interpretation of the data, and drafted the manuscript; Shuangjin Liu participated in its design, performed the statistical analyses; Hongcai Wang and Qin Yang helped participated in the interpretation of the data, and helped draft the manuscript; Yiqiu Hu conceived of the study, provided reviews and funds. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This article was facilitated by a scholarship of Hunan Education Science Key Funding Project (grant numbers XJK23AJD023) to Dr. Y. Hu and Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province (CX20230459) to Zihao Zeng.