Developmental paths of psychological health from early adolescence to later adulthood

Developmental paths of psychological health were examined for 236 participants of the Berkeley Growth Study, the Berkeley Guidance Study, and the Oakland Growth Study. A clinician-reported aggregate index, the Psychological Health Index (PHI), based on California Q-Sort ratings, was created for subsets of participants at 14, 18, 30, 40, 50, and 62 years of age. Latent curve analysis was then used to explicate the life span development of psychological health. Psychological health development could be successfully modeled via 2 piecewise latent growth curves. Psychological health appears to be stable in adolescence and to steadily increase from 30 to 62 years of age. A moderately strong positive correlation between the 2 developmental curves indicates that those with greater psychological health in adolescence show more improvement in adult psychological health tend to also. Results illustrate the value of the PHI and the power of latent curve analysis to explicate longitudinal stability and change.