Efeito do otimismo, autoestima e autoeficácia na explicação de sintomas depressivos entre adolescentes

Abstract

The present dissertation aimed to investigate the relationship between positive personal characteristics and depressive symptoms in adolescence, in order to develop a robust predictor model capable of detecting the main aspects related to the development of depression. For that, three studies were elaborated. In the Study 1 an investigation was carried out on the main theoretical aspects of optimism and its applicability in health, as well as health interventions associated with the increase of optimism levels. In the Study 2 an integrative review of the literature of empirical articles that evaluated the relationship of optimism and depression among adolescents (10-19 years) was performed. It was observed that optimism was positively associated with other positive characteristics (hope and self-esteem) and that both variables were negatively related to depressive symptoms. In addition, it was found that most of the studies originated in the United States, which corroborates findings in the literature. In addition, a higher concentration of studies between the years 2011 to 2017, and the most used measure to measure optimism was the Life Orientation Test Revised (LOT-R). Finally the Study 3, from a sample of 388 adolescents, investigated the predictive model of positive personal characteristics (optimism, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-concept), as well as sociodemographic and school variables, aiming to detect the main predictors of depressive symptoms in adolescents. In summary, the results showed that the variables female gender, poor relationship, poor or neutral with teachers, and low levels of optimism, self-esteem, and self-efficacy were significant for predicting depressive symptoms among the participants. Specifically in relation to optimism, it was observed that it presented significant complementary variance in comparison to self-esteem and self-efficacy, as well as to the other variables measured. It is suggested that the study of the impact of positive personal characteristics can helps health professionals to understand the factors that are directly related to depression in adolescence. It is recommended that future research include other positive and variable personal characteristics not evaluated in this investigation, in order to increase not only the theoretical understanding of such constructs, but also to increase the explanatory capacity of the proposed model.