Maternal depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms in adolescents

The relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and rates of adolescent (15-16 years) depressive symptoms was studied in a birth cohort of 934 New Zealand children. There was a clear correlation between maternal depressive symptoms and subsequent depressive symptoms in adolescent females (r = .44) but no association (r = -.01) between maternal depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms in adolescent males. Subsequent analysis suggested that the correlation between maternal depression and depressive symptoms in adolescent females was largely explained by the associations of both measures with a series of social and contextual factors including social disadvantage, marital discord and family adversity. It is concluded that maternal depression is only associated with depression in adolescence insofar as maternal depression is associated with social disadvantage, marital discord or family adversity.     

Cigarette smoking predicts development of depressive symptoms among U.S. adolescents

Latent inhibition (LI) refers to retarded conditioning to a stimulus as a consequence of its nonreinforced preexposure. LI is impaired in acute schizophrenic patients and in rats treated with amphetamine. Neuroleptic drugs enhance LI, and this effect is selective and specific for this class of drugs. The present experiments tested the proposition that neuroleptic-induced enhancement of LI stems from decreased capacity of stimulus-preexposed animals to switch responding according to the new stimulus-reinforcement contingency in the conditioning stage. LI was assessed using an off-baseline conditioned emotional response (CER) procedure in rats licking for water, consisting of three stages: preexposure to the-to-be conditioned stimulus, tone; conditioning, in which the preexposed stimulus was paired with a foot-shock; and test, in which LI was indexed by animals' degree of suppression of licking during tone presentation. Whereas in previous studies that demonstrated LI enhancement by neuroleptics, preexposure consisted of 10 to 40 tones, and conditioning included two tone-shock pairings, the present experiments used 40 tone preexposures, followed by an extended conditioning stage with five tone-shock pairings. It was expected that under these conditions no LI effect would be evident in untreated animals, but that animals treated with a neuroleptic drug, either during the entire LI procedure or only in conditioning, would show LI. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that LI was obtained in rats treated with haloperidol (0.1 mg/kg in experiment 1, 0.03 and 0.2 mg/kg in experiment 2) but not in the untreated controls. Experiment 3 showed that the same outcome was obtained when haloperidol (0.1 mg/kg) administration was confined to the conditioning stage. Experiment 4 showed that clozapine (5 mg/kg)-treated animals showed LI when the drug was confined to conditioning, but not to the preexposure stage. The implications of these results for the mechanism of action of neuroleptic drugs are discussed.     

Cognitive correlates of depressive symptoms in hospitalized adolescents

This study examined the relationship between self-reported depression and cognitive style in adolescent inpatients. Attributional style, perceived control over environmental events, and hopelessness were assessed in 80 consecutive admissions to an adolescent psychiatric unit. BDI scores were used to classify 36 patients as depressed and 44 as nondepressed. Adolescents who reported depression also reported significantly more internal attributions for negative events and less internal attributions for positive events, evidenced a more external locus of control, and described themselves as significantly more hopeless than did the nondepressed adolescents. Hopelessness and internal attributions for negative events were the strongest predictors of depressive symptoms. In contrast to the findings of most studies using clinical populations of depressed children and adolescents, a maladaptive cognitive style and self-reported depression were highly, positively correlated.     

Relations among self-reported depressive symptoms in clinic-referred children versus adolescents.

Although there is consensus regarding the existence of childhood depression, disagreement remains as to whether symptoms are developmentally isomorphic. Previous studies focused on developmental differences in symptom levels; analyses of relations among symptoms may be more appropriate, however. Here both approaches were used to compare the Children's Depression Inventory responses from 1,030 clinic-referred children and adolescents. Four of 9 symptom categories showed significant developmental differences in their correlations with total score. Externalizing behavior and guilt were more strongly related to depression in children than adolescents; affective symptoms and concerns about the future showed the reverse pattern. Results illustrate the importance of considering relations among symptoms as well as differences in symptom levels when evaluating theoretical claims about developmental differences in the nature of clinical syndromes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reciprocal relations between rumination and bulimic, substance abuse, and depressive symptoms in female adolescents.

The authors examined the reciprocal relations between rumination and symptoms of depression, bulimia, and substance abuse with longitudinal data from 496 female adolescents. Rumination predicted future increases in bulimic and substance abuse symptoms, as well as onset of major depression, binge eating, and substance abuse. Depressive and bulimic, but not substance abuse, symptoms predicted increases in rumination. Rumination did not predict increases in externalizing symptoms, providing evidence for the specificity of effects of rumination, although externalizing symptoms predicted future increases in rumination. Results suggest rumination may contribute to the etiology of depressive, bulimic, and substance abuse pathology and that the former two disturbances may foster increased rumination. Results imply that it might be beneficial for prevention programs to target this cognitive vulnerability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The prevention of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review.

Research on the prevention of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents was reviewed and synthesized with meta-analysis. When all 30 studies were included, selective prevention programs were found to be more effective than universal programs immediately following intervention. Both selective and indicated prevention programs were more effective than universal programs at follow-up, even when the 2 studies with college students were excluded. Effect sizes for selective and indicated prevention programs tended to be small to moderate, both immediately postintervention and at an average follow-up of 6 months. Most effective interventions are more accurately described as treatment rather than prevention. Suggestions for future research include testing potential moderators (e.g., age, gender, anxiety, parental depression) and mechanisms, designing programs that are developmentally appropriate and gender and culturally sensitive, including longer follow-ups, and using multiple measures and methods to assess both symptoms and diagnoses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A prospective study of the cognitive-stress model of depressive symptoms in adolescents.

This prospective study investigated a cognitive diathesis-stress model of depression in adolescents across the transition from 6th to 7th grade using individual, additive, weakest link, and keystone approaches to operationalizing the cognitive vulnerability. Participants were 240 young adolescents (mean age = 11.87 years, SD = 0.57) who differed in risk for mood disorders based on their mother's history of depression. Results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated some support for the individual, additive, weakest link, and keystone diatheses. In particular, the weakest link diathesis interacted with stress and gender to predict increases in depressive symptoms in 7th grade; the form of this interaction was consistent with the cognitive diathesis-stress model for boys, whereas for girls the pattern of relations reflected more of a dual-vulnerability model. That is, high levels of depressive symptoms were found for all girls except those with more positive cognitive styles and low stress levels. These findings highlight the utility of examining different approaches to combining measures of cognitive vulnerability in conjunction with stress in predicting depressive symptoms, and the importance of exploring gender differences with regard to the cognitive diathesis-stress model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of family, peer, and school contexts on depressive symptoms in adolescents with spina bifida.

Objective: Based on social ecological theory, this study examined the joint relations among adolescents' family, peer, and school contexts and depressive symptoms in youth with spina bifida using cumulative, protective, and specific effects models. Method: Sixty families of adolescents with spina bifida and 65 comparison families reported on adolescents' positive experiences within these contexts and on depressive symptoms when youth were 14–15 and 16–17 years old. Results: Adolescents with spina bifida had fewer total positive contexts and less positive experience within peer and school contexts, as compared to typically developing adolescents. Greater total number of positive contexts and higher levels of positive experiences within family and school contexts were associated with fewer depressive symptoms for both groups; peer positive experiences were related to lower depressive symptoms for typically developing adolescents only. Conclusion: Adolescents with spina bifida have fewer positive contexts, which may place them at risk for higher levels of depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-blame and depressive symptoms.

Investigated whether internal attributions for bad events are always associated with depression. The depressive symptoms of 86 female undergraduates correlated with blame directed at their own characters. In contrast, blame directed at their own behaviors correlated with lack of depressive symptoms. Behaviorally attributed bad events were seen as more controllable and their causes less stable and less global than were characterologically attributed bad events and their causes. Characterological blame increased with more negative life events during the last year, implying that individuals who blame their character may arrive at this attributional style by a covariation analysis. Finally, characterological blame did not precede the onset of depressive symptoms 6 or 12 wks later. As a result, characterological blame may be a strong concomitant of depression but not a cause. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal study of family obligation and depressive symptoms among Chinese American adolescents.

The purpose of this 2-year, 3-wave longitudinal study of Chinese American adolescents was to examine how family obligation behaviors and attitudes change over time; how gender, nativity, and birth order predict these trajectories; and whether family obligation relates to depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that family obligation behaviors decreased over the 2-year period but that family obligation attitudes were stable. Moreover, foreign-born adolescents reported higher levels of family obligation behavior than U.S.-born adolescents, and firstborn adolescents reported higher family obligation attitudes than laterborn adolescents. There were no gender differences in family obligation behaviors or attitudes. The findings also suggest that initial higher levels of family obligation were associated with subsequently fewer depressive symptoms. Finally, changes in family obligation behaviors related to changes in depressive symptoms over time such that increasing family obligation behaviors related to decreasing depressive symptoms. The results highlight the importance of understanding the role of family obligation to Chinese American adolescents’ mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitions and stress: Direct and moderating effects on depressive versus externalizing symptoms during the junior high school transition.

This study examined direct and stress-moderating effects of attributional style and global self-worth on depressive and externalizing symptoms in adolescents. Attributional style, perceived self-worth, depressive symptoms, and externalizing behaviors were assessed in 371 students in the spring of 6th grade. After the transition to 7th grade, they again completed measures of depression and externalizing symptoms as well as measures of negative life events and school hassles. Stressors around the transition predicted both depressive and externalizing behaviors. Perceived self-worth predicted depressive symptoms, but not externalizing behaviors. Attributional style directly and in interaction with stressors predicted depressive symptoms and did not predict externalizing behavior. A 3-way interaction between stress, attributional style, and self-worth suggested that level of perceived self-worth may moderate the effects of attributional style in times of stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality, negative social interactions, and depressive symptoms.

Examined the associations among the frequency of negative social interactions, personality traits, and depressive symptoms in university students. 176 Ss completed measures of negative social interactions, sociotropy, autonomy, perfectionism, and depressive symptoms. It was found in the total sample that higher depression symptoms scores were correlated significantly with the frequency of negative social interactions, sociotropy, autonomy, and socially prescribed perfectionism. Additional results indicate that the frequency of negative social interactions accounted for unique variance in depressive symptoms over and above the variance predicted by personality traits, but it did not interact with these personality traits to predict unique variance in depressive symptoms. It was also found that the reported frequency of negative social interactions was correlated positively with socially prescribed perfectionism, sociotropy, and autonomy, especially among women. The current findings are discussed in terms of their implications for specific vulnerability and stress generation models of personality, life events, and depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bidirectional relations of religious orientation and depressive symptoms in adolescents: A short-term longitudinal study.

Religious orientation can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic: intrinsically oriented individuals “live their religion,” whereas extrinsically oriented individuals practice religion mainly to gain external benefits. In adults, depression has been found to correlate negatively with intrinsic religious orientation and positively with extrinsic orientation. Studies of the relation between religiosity and depression typically have not been longitudinal, conducted with adolescents, controlled for the influence of other factors associated with depression (i.e., negative cognitions), or examined the reverse relation of depression predicting religious orientation. Our 4-month longitudinal study of 273 ninth-grade students addressed these issues. Results showed that higher intrinsic religious orientation measured at baseline significantly predicted lower self-reported depressive symptoms 4 months later, controlling for initial level of depressive symptoms and cognitive style; in contrast, extrinsic orientation and the interaction between religious orientation and life events did not significantly predict later depressive symptoms. Self-reported depressive symptoms, however, did not predict either intrinsic or extrinsic religious orientation 4 months later. Factors contributing to different findings for adolescents versus adults in the relation between extrinsic religious orientation and depression are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive vulnerability to depressive symptoms in adolescents in urban and rural Hunan, China: A multiwave longitudinal study.

The current multiwave longitudinal study examined the applicability of two cognitive vulnerability-stress models of depression—Beck's (1967, 1983) cognitive theory and the hopelessness theory (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989)—in two independent samples of adolescents from Hunan Province, China (one rural and one urban). During an initial assessment, participants completed measures assessing dysfunctional attitudes (Beck, 1967, 1983), negative cognitive style (Abramson et al., 1989), neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992), depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Once a month for the subsequent 6 months, participants completed measures assessing the occurrence of different types of negative events, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Results provided support for cognitive vulnerability factors as predictors of increases in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of higher than average levels of negative events in Chinese adolescents. The results also supported the specificity of these two cognitive vulnerability factors as predictors of depressive versus anxiety symptoms following the occurrence of higher than average levels of negative events (i.e., symptom specificity), and the ability of cognitive vulnerability factors to predict prospective change in depressive symptoms above and beyond the effects of trait neuroticism (i.e., etiological specificity). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social-interactional model of the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence.

This study used longitudinal, multimethod data to examine specific patterns of behavioral interaction with parents and peers that were hypothesized to predict increasing levels of depressive symptoms in early adolescence. Adolescents' struggles in establishing autonomy and relatedness in interactions with mothers, and a withdrawn, angry, or dependent pattern of behavior with a best friend, were assessed with observational and peer-report methods in a community sample of 143 adolescents, who were also assessed for levels of depressive symptoms at age 13 and with whom the authors followed up 1 year later. Study hypotheses were confirmed, with dysfunctional interaction patterns with parents and peers combining additively to account for substantial change variance in depressive symptoms over time. Results are interpreted as highlighting specific behavioral patterns that may be promising to address via psychosocial interventions targeting adolescent depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in depressive self-schemata and depressive symptoms following cognitive therapy.

Examined the effects of 6–8 sessions of Beck's cognitive therapy on mildly and moderately depressed college students' depressive symptoms and depressive self-schemata. Participants were randomly assigned to either cognitive therapy (n?=?31) or no treatment (n?=?43). The Beck Depression Inventory was used to assess depressive symptoms, and self-referent judgment, recall, and reaction time (RT) measures were used to assess depressive self-schemata. Results support the efficacy of cognitive therapy in reducing depressive symptoms and depressive self-schemata, as measured by self-referent judgment and self-referent recall. The reduction in the recall of negative self-referent judgments may play a role in the outcome of cognitive therapy for depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prevention of depressive symptoms in adolescents: A randomized trial of cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal prevention programs.

This study evaluated the efficacy of 2 programs for preventing depressive symptoms in adolescents. Participants were 380 high school students randomly assigned to a cognitive-behavioral program (CB), an interpersonal psychotherapy-adolescent skills training program (IPT-AST), or a no-intervention control. The interventions involved eight 90-min weekly sessions run in small groups during wellness classes. At postintervention, students in both the CB and IPT-AST groups reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms than did those in the no-intervention group, controlling for baseline depression scores; the 2 intervention groups did not differ significantly from each other. The effect sizes, using Cohen's d, for the CB intervention and the IPT-AST intervention were 0.37 and 0.26, respectively. Differences between control and intervention groups were largest for adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms at baseline. For a high-risk subgroup, defined as having scored in the top 25th percentile on the baseline depression measure, the effect sizes for the CB and the IPT-AST interventions were 0.89 and 0.84, respectively. For the whole sample, sociotropy and achievement orientation moderated the effect of the interventions. Intervention effects were short term and were not maintained at 6-month follow-up. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accent, perpetual foreigner stereotype, and perceived discrimination as indirect links between English proficiency and depressive symptoms in Chinese American adolescents.

The current study uses García Coll et al.'s (1996) developmental competence model of ethnic minority children and Kim's (1999) racial triangulation theory as frameworks for investigating the mechanisms whereby early adolescent English proficiency relates to perceived discriminatory experiences and adolescent depressive symptoms. Data from 444 adolescents (239 girls and 205 boys, with a mean age of 13.0 years for Wave 1 and 17.0 years for Wave 2) and their parents living in major metropolitan areas of Northern California were collected. The structural equation modeling analyses indicate that self-reported low levels of English proficiency among Chinese American adolescents in middle school are related to these same students later reporting that they speak English with an accent in high school, which in turn relates significantly to their perceiving that they have been stereotyped as perpetual foreigners. For girls, a perpetual foreigner stereotype relates to perceptions of chronic daily discrimination, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. For boys, the path is different: A perpetual foreigner stereotype is apparently related to discriminatory victimization experiences, which increase the risk of depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mindfulness is associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems in urban firefighters.

Objective: This study investigated the association between mindfulness, other resilience resources, and several measures of health in 124 urban firefighters. Method: Participants completed health measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems and measures of resilience resources including mindfulness, optimism, personal mastery, and social support. The Mindful Awareness and Attention Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003) was used to assess mindfulness. Participants also completed measures of firefighter stress, number of calls, and years as a firefighter as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with the health measures as the dependent variables with 3 levels of independent variables: (a) demographic characteristics, (b) firefighter variables, and (c) resilience resources. Results: The results showed that mindfulness was associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems when controlling for the other study variables. Personal mastery and social support were also related to fewer depressive symptoms, firefighter stress was related to more PTSD symptoms and alcohol problems, and years as a firefighter were related to fewer alcohol problems. Conclusions: Mindfulness may be important to consider and include in models of stress, coping, and resilience in firefighters. Future studies should examine the prospective relationship between mindfulness and health in firefighters and others in high-stress occupations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)