In contrast to the finding for females, there was no evidence that increasing levels of depressive symptoms in males was related to harmful alcohol use at 18 years. There was evidence for a moderate association between baseline depressive symptoms and harmful alcohol use, but this was substantially attenuated after adjusting for conduct problems. In males the rise in depressive symptoms was seen to occur at a later age and was of a reduced magnitude compared with the rise seen in females. Consequently, our measures of depressive symptoms may be too early or too insensitive for an association in males to manifest. The impact of adjustment for late childhood conduct problems is worthy of note and offers insight into a potential alternative mechanism through which early adolescent depressive symptoms may confer a risk of later harmful alcohol use.
