• Research Center for Medicine and Social Development, School of Public Health, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, P. R. China;
LIU Qin, Email: liuqin@cqmu.edu.cn
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Objective To systematically review the influence of childhood psychosocial stress on pubertal emotional and behavioral problems. Methods The PubMed, OVID, EBSCO, Web of Science, CBM, VIP, WanFang Data and CNKI databases were electronically searched to collect studies on the relationships between childhood psychosocial stress and pubertal emotional and behavioral problems from inception to February 29, 2024. Two reviewers independently screened the literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies. Qualitative methods were then used to analyze the data. Results A total of 41 cohort studies were included. The outcomes of 19 studies involved pubertal emotional problems, 26 studies involved behavioral problems, and 7 studies involved overall problems. The results showed that depression (14/19) and anxiety (8/19) were the most commonly reported emotional behaviors. Most studies (17/19) showed that childhood psychological stress had a positive predictive effect on pubertal emotional problems. Behavioral problems involved many outcomes, including smoking, drinking, illegal substance use, self-injurious behavior, suicide, externalizing behavior, criminal behavior, bullying behavior, sexual behavior, mobile phone dependence, etc. However, few studies were on the same behaviors, and the relationship between childhood psychosocial stress and behavioral problems was unclear. Conclusion Childhood psychosocial stress may have a positive predictive effect on depression and anxiety. The associations between childhood psychosocial stress and pubertal behavioral problems and other emotional problems remain to be determined by more studies.