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Assessing the role of adolescent hormonal contraceptive use on risk for depression: a 3-year longitudinal study protocol - BMC Women's Health

Assessing the role of adolescent hormonal contraceptive use on risk for depression: a 3-year longitudinal study protocol - BMC Women's Health

Source : https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-022-01623-2

Background The incidence of depression in human females rises steadily throughout adolescence, a critical period of pubertal maturation marked by increasing levels of gonadal hormones including estrogens and progesterone. These gonadal hormones play a central role in social and emotional development and may also contribute to the increased occurrence of depression in females that begins in early adolescence.


Conclusion/Relevance: In this study we will assess the effect of CHC use during adolescence on development of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). We will control for variables previously found to or proposed to partially account for the observed relationship between CHC use and MDD, including socioeconomic status, age of sexual debut, and CHC-related variables including age of first use, reasons for use, and its duration.

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    Key Points:
    • Source: BMC Women’s Health
    • Conclusion/Relevance: “In this study, we examine whether and how introducing synthetic estrogen and progestin derivatives through the use of combined hormonal contraceptives (CHC), affects adolescent females’ risk for developing depression. We further assess potential links between CHC use and alterations in stress responses and social-emotional functioning.”
    • Researchers will employ a longitudinal cohort design to follow a sample of adolescent females during three years.
    • CHC use in adolescents may be linked to increases in depressive symptoms during the short- and long-term. Gonadal hormones could increase depression by affecting the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis regulation and social-emotional functioning.
    • Factors assessed in the current study will include socioeconomic status, age of sexual debut, age of first CHC use, reasons for CHC use, and duration of CHC use, which all could play a role in the development of depression secondary to CHC.