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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Emotion Science

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1668518

Understanding the Transition from Stress to Depression: A Longitudinal Mediational Analysis of Anxiety in Adults from the Metropolitan Region of Chile

Provisionally accepted
  • Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Drawing on recent advances in Beck's cognitive model — which traditionally conceptualizes anxiety and depression as correlated but does not explicitly address their temporal ordering — this study tests whether anxiety operates as a sequential mediator linking sustained stress to depressive symptoms in a non-clinical adult population. Prior longitudinal and mediation studies have examined associations among stress, anxiety, and depression, but differences in design, population, and analytical focus limit their applicability to non-clinical adult contexts. We extend this literature with data obtained from 805 adults in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile, followed across three waves at two-month intervals during the COVID-19 pandemic, although no pre-pandemic baseline was available. Accordingly, findings should be interpreted as evidence of the stress–anxiety–depression sequence within pandemic conditions. A cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) was used to estimate the temporal relations among stress, anxiety, and depression. This statistical method accounts for the stability of each construct across repeated measurements while estimating directional relationships over time. Results confirmed a significant partial mediation: perceived stress at T1 predicted higher anxiety at T2, which in turn predicted increased depressive symptoms at T3 (standardized indirect effect β = 0.049, 95% CI [0.016, 0.091], p = .009). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study conducted with a non-clinical adult sample from the Metropolitan Region of Chile that validates this mediation sequence. The findings advance Beck’s model by demonstrating anxiety’s role as a sequential mediator, contribute methodologically through the use of a three-wave CLPM to test temporal precedence, and support preventive interventions targeting early detection of subclinical anxiety to disrupt trajectories toward depression. Together, the results update the cognitive model and inform both clinical practice and public health strategies in emotionally demanding contexts.

Keywords: perceived stress, Anxiety, Depression, Longitudinal mediation, cognitive model

Received: 18 Jul 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Gomez, Marcos and Unanue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Marcos E. Gomez, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile

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