Identifying Adolescents at Risk for Emotional Disorders with Latent Profle Analysis: A Personalized, Transdiagnostic Preventive Intervention

Abstract

It can be challenging to assign patients to the appropriate intervention programs, as risk and protective factors for developing emotional disorders are multiple and shared across disorders. This study aimed to provide a theoretical and empirical approach to identify and categorise adolescents into diferent levels of severity. The risk of developing emotional symptoms was assessed in 1425 Spanish adolescents (M=14.34, SD=1.76; 59.9% women). Latent Profle Analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify subgroups based on their emotional symptom severity, risk, and resilience factors. Results revealed four profles: at low risk (emotionally healthy), moderate risk (for selective interventions), high risk (for indicated interventions), and severe risk (for clinical referral). Older age and especially female gender were predictors of higher risk clusters, and there were diferences in the levels of psychopathology and health-related quality of life across clusters. Identifcation of atrisk adolescents for emotional disorders by means of LPA may contribute to designing personalised and tailored prevention programs that match adolescents’ specifc needs.