Toward an understanding of depression from the standpoint of women: Exploring contributions of qualitative research approaches.

Provides an introduction to the special issue of Canadian Psychology on depression in women. "Depression" is recognized as one of the more common mental health problems and also one that is particularly prevalent among women. One major limitation of mainstream theorizing is the taken-for-granted view of depression as a form of internal "psychopathology," a phenomenon which can be understood without regard to sociocultural context. An approach that avoids this limitation is one in which contextual aspects of women's lives are included from the outset by following a research process that begins with the lived experiences of women. A focus on women's experiences also leads to consideration of the contributions of qualitative approaches to research on depression which are compatible with both a feminist standpoint perspective and social constructionist epistemologies. The articles in this special issue are intended to contribute to the development of new knowledge about depression in women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vers une compréhension de la dépression dans la perspective des femmes: Exploration de la contribution des approches de la recherche qualitative.

Provides an introduction to the special issue of Canadian Psychology on depression in women. "Depression" is recognized as one of the more common mental health problems and also one that is particularly prevalent among women. One major limitation of mainstream theorizing is the taken-for-granted view of depression as a form of internal "psychopathology," a phenomenon which can be understood without regard to sociocultural context. An approach that avoids this limitation is one in which contextual aspects of women's lives are included from the outset by following a research process that begins with the lived experiences of women. A focus on women's experiences also leads to consideration of the contributions of qualitative approaches to research on depression which are compatible with both a feminist standpoint perspective and social constructionist epistemologies. The articles in this special issue are intended to contribute to the development of new knowledge about depression in women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control-related beliefs and self-reported depressive symptoms in late childhood

Research thus far links depressive symptoms in children to one type of control-related belief: low levels of perceived personal competence. However, child research, unlike adult research, has not supported a linkage between depressive symptoms and another theoretically important control-related belief: perceived noncontingency of outcomes. Here we reexamined the issue, adjusting for limitations in previous methodology by using (a) psychometrically stronger measures of control beliefs, and (b) a general population sample rather than children being treated in mental health clinics. In contrast to previous results, we found that both perceived incompetence and perceived noncontingency were strongly related to children's depression, together accounting for 40% of the variance in Child Depression Inventory scores. We also found, as in previous research, that depressive symptoms were correlated with uncertainty as to the causes of outcomes, especially successes. The findings suggest that children may be susceptible to both "personal helplessness" and "universal helplessness" forms of depression.     

Obesity as a prospective predictor of depression in adolescent females.

Objective: Both obesity and depression are prominent during adolescence, and it is possible that obesity is a trigger for adolescent depression. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether overweight or obese status contributes to the development of depression in adolescent girls. Design: Participants were 496 adolescent girls who completed interview based measures of depression and had their height and weight measured at four yearly assessments. Repeated measures logistic regressions with generalized estimating equations were used to evaluate whether overweight or obese status were associated with major depression or an increase in depressive symptoms the following year. Main Outcome Measures: Major depression and depressive symptoms were evaluating using a modified version of the K-SADS interview. Overweight and obese status was determined by using standardized protocols to measure height and weight. Results: Results showed that obese status, not overweight status, was associated with future depressive symptoms, but not major depression. This study demonstrated that obesity is a risk factor for depressive symptoms, but not for clinical depression. Conclusions: As depressive symptoms are considered along the spectrum of depression with clinical depression at the high end, these results suggest that weight status could be considered a factor along the pathway of development of depression in some adolescent females. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression symptoms in Canadian psychology graduate students: Do research productivity, funding, and the academic advisory relationship play a role?

Depression is one of the most common psychological disorders affecting university students (Rimmer, Halikas, & Schuckit, 1982; Vazquez & Blanco, 2008); however, undergraduate students have received the majority of the research focus. The limited research available on graduate students suggests they may also be vulnerable to developing depression (Eisenberg, Gollust, Golberstein, & Hefner, 2007). The current investigation provides initial data on depression symptoms in Canadian psychology graduate students. Participants included psychology graduate students from across Canada (N = 292; 87% women) who were currently enrolled in clinical, experimental, counselling, and educational programmes. Each of the participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) and measures of: funding, research productivity, hours worked, and their advisory relationship. A substantial proportion of students (33%) reported clinically significant symptoms of depression (CES-D > 16), with a significant minority reporting severe symptoms of depression and impairment. There were no differences in symptom reporting across programme type; however, results of regression analyses indicated that advisory relationship satisfaction and greater current weekly hours worked were significant predictors of depressive symptoms for students enrolled in experimental programmes. In contrast, depression symptoms were unrelated to funding, research productivity, hours worked, and advisory relationship satisfaction for students in all other programmes. Implications and future directions for research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schema research in depression: A Canadian perspective.

Schemata about the self figure prominently in cognitive accounts of depression onset, maintenance, and enduring risk for relapse. According to Beck (1976), depressive information processing stems from the activation of pathological cognitive structures or schemas that develop early in life and become activated in adulthood in response to stressful experiences. While early attempts at validating the self-schema in depression relied upon clinical anecdote and self-report inventories, more recent work has focussed on a view of schematic operations as defined within cognitive psychology. Canadian researchers have been at the forefront of these developments both in terms of methodological innovation and theoretical refinement. A citation analysis of scholarly articles listed in the Psychological Abstracts for the years 1979–1996 demonstrates the overrepresentation of Canadian research activity in this area. This article provides a selective review of research emanating from Canadian laboratories with special attention to the most recent results from laboratory- and clinic-based studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use and abuse of the children's depression inventory.

This study investigated current uses of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), a frequently cited self-report measure for children's depressive symptomatology. Recently published studies of "childhood depression" were reviewed: Half of them used the CDI. Of these studies, 68% did not use a clinical or structured interview to determine diagnostic status. When the CDI was used alone to assess depressive symptoms, 44% of studies referred to high CDI scorers as "depressed" without providing a clear cautionary statement (i.e., either stating that the CDI cannot be used to diagnose depression or clarifying limitations regarding generalization of findings from a nonclinical to a clinical sample). These results are similar to those previously published regarding the Beck Depression Inventory, and they suggest a need for caution in the administration and interpretation of results from self-report inventories for children's depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editors' introduction to the special issue: Behavioural origins and solutions of environmental problems.

With this special issue, CJBS joins several journals in focussing on environmental problems and their relation to human behaviours. The six research papers by Canadian researchers in this issue are grouped into three areas: environmentally responsible behaviours, managed resource use, and community problems. An invited essay by the Minister of Environment, the Honourable Sergio Marchi, P.C, M.P., concludes this issue with a call for psychological research targeted to the needs of policymakers and legislators. This introduction sets these articles in the context of environmental psychology research, defined as a perspective on psychological research in which the focus is on transactions between people and their physical surroundings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recherches sur la mémoire implicite en 1996: Introduction.

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology is entitled "Research on implicit memory in 1996." Today, implicit memory is the focus of memory research. As research on implicit memory is still a very new phenomenon, and the readers of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology come from extremely different mediums of research, the author presents a general introduction to implicit memory and to the eleven articles of this special issue. As you will note, the eleven articles in this issue throw a new and innovating glance on a whole range of empirical or theoretical subjects which treat implicit memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Music cognition and performance: An introduction.

Introduces this issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology as focusing on musical cognition and performance. There are a series of articles reporting on explorations of various aspects of the cognitive processing of music. Other articles focus on different aspects of the perceptual and cognitive processing of music. Also represented in this special issue is work looking at the emotional aspect of musical behaviour. Finally, this special issue contains two series of experiments related to musical performance, each, interestingly enough, with a developmental slant. Overall, the articles in this special issue provide insight into how it is that people perceive and produce complex auditory information, and are suggestive about what research in musical cognition can say about psychological processing in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vulnerability to postpartum depression: A prospective multivariate study.

A sample of 115 primiparous women was assessed during pregnancy and the postpartum to identify the predictors and correlates of postpartum depression. The variables considered were marital adjustment, attributional style, life stress, maternal expectations for and perceptions of infant behavior, and blues symptoms. The data obtained at each assessment were submitted to principal-components analyses to identify variable clusters or constructs, which were used to predict both depressive symptom levels and a diagnosis of depression. Concurrently, symptoms and diagnosis were related to mothers' perceptions of their infants as temperamentally difficult. Prospectively, depressive symptomatology was predicted by low marital adjustment and depressed mood during pregnancy, optimistic expectations for infants, prepartum life stress, and early postpartum symptoms of anxiety and cognitive impairment. Although diagnostic status was related to a subset of these variables, results indicate that depressive symptom levels and diagnosis are not synonymous measures of the construct "postpartum depression." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological distress and somatic symptoms after natural disaster: Differential vulnerability among older adults.

In a panel study, more than 200 older adults were interviewed before and after a severe flood in southeastern Kentucky in 1984. The issue in this study was whether older adult flood victims were differentially vulnerable to increases in psychological and physical symptoms on the basis of their age, sex, marital status, occupational status, education level, and preflood symptom levels. Flood exposure was related to increases in depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms at 18 months postflood. Within this older adult sample, men, those with lower occupational status, and persons aged 55–64 were at significantly greater risk for increases in psychological symptoms. Sociodemographic status did not moderate the impact of flood exposure on physical health. Implications for crisis-intervention services to older adult disaster victims are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response styles among patients with minor depression and dysthymia in primary care.

Ruminative responses to depression have predicted duration and severity of depressive symptoms. The authors examined how response styles change over the course of treatment for depression and as a function of type of treatment. They also examined the ability of response styles to predict treatment outcome and status at follow-up. Primary care patients (n=96) with dysthymia or minor depression were randomly assigned to problem-solving therapy, paroxetine, or placebo. Patients' depressive symptoms and rumination, but not distraction, decreased over time. Pretreatment rumination and distraction were associated with more depressive symptoms at the conclusion of treatment; the latter finding was not consistent with the response style theory of depression. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for this theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of life post-myocardial infarction: Effects of a transtelephonic coronary intervention system.

Evaluated the impact of an outpatient risk-management system, including a transtelephonic electrocardiographic monitor and lidocaine injector, on the quality of life (i.e., psychological status, return to work, social functioning) in 238 post-myocardial infarction patients. Ss were assigned to either the system or to standard medical care. Relative to controls, system Ss showed a significant decrease in concerns about physical functioning and symptoms and reported less depressive affect. At 9-mo follow-up, controls were more than twice as likely to be in the range of clinical depression as system Ss. Perceptions of their ability to manage a recurrence of cardiac symptoms were related inversely to depressive affect. A larger percentage of system Ss than controls had returned to work by the follow-up. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional status and depression among men and women with congestive heart failure

OBJECTIVE: The study was designed 1) to examine the prevalence of depression in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF); 2) to explore associations between the physician's rating of functional status (NYHA class) and patient's assessment of functional status (physical limitation, dyspnea) with symptoms of depression; and 3) to explore gender related differences in relation to physician's rating and patient's rating of function status, and symptoms of depression. METHOD: A sample of 119 clinically stable heart failure patients (85 males and 34 females) was recruited from an outpatient cardiology hospital practice. The patients underwent a physical examination and completed a set of questionnaires. Prevalence of depressive symptoms and the association of these symptoms with NYHA class and patient's perceived functional status was studied. RESULTS: Findings indicate that depressive symptoms were not predominant among this sample of CHF patients. Path analyses showed non-significant direct associations between NYHA class as well as patient's perception of dyspnea with depression. In contract, the subjective indicator of physical limitations was strongly associated with symptoms of depression among the males, but this relation was not significant among the females. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that men and women respond differently to the burden of heart failure. However, interpretation of the results from the present study should be considered as tentative and additional research is required to examine mechanisms that explain gender differences in response to heart failure.     

Depression, self-esteem, and anger in emerging adulthood: Seven-year trajectories.

This study used a school-based community sample (N = 920) to examine trajectories of depressive symptoms, self-esteem, and expressed anger in the critical years of emerging adulthood (ages 18-25). Using data from 5 waves, the authors discovered that multilevel models indicated that, on average, depressive symptoms and expressed anger declined, whereas self-esteem increased. Between-persons predictors of variability in trajectories included gender (gender gaps in depressive symptoms and self-esteem narrowed), parents' education, and conflict with parents (depressive symptoms and expressed anger improved fastest in participants with highly educated parents and in those with higher conflict). Across time, increases in social support and marriage were associated with increased psychological well-being, whereas longer periods of unemployment were connected with higher depression and lower self-esteem. Emerging adulthood is a time of improving psychological well-being, but individual trajectories depend on specific individual and family characteristics as well as role changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work gets unfair for the depressed: Cross-lagged relations between organizational justice perceptions and depressive symptoms.

The organizational justice literature has consistently documented substantial correlations between organizational justice and employee depression. Existing theoretical literature suggests this relationship occurs because perceptions of organizational (in)justice lead to subsequent psychological health problems. Building on recent research on the affective nature of justice perceptions, in the present research we broaden this perspective by arguing there are also theoretical arguments for a reverse effect whereby psychological health problems influence perceptions of organizational justice. To contrast both theoretical perspectives, we test longitudinal lagged effects between organizational justice perceptions (i.e., distributive justice, interactional justice, interpersonal justice, informational justice, and procedural justice) and employee depressive symptoms using structural equation modeling. Analyses of 3 samples from different military contexts (N? = 625, N? = 134, N? = 550) revealed evidence of depressive symptoms leading to subsequent organizational justice perceptions. In contrast, the opposite effects of organizational justice perceptions on depressive symptoms were not significant for any of the justice dimensions. The findings have broad implications for theoretical perspectives on psychological health and organizational justice perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Course of Depressive Symptomatology in Geriatric Patients With Cancer of the Breast, Colon, Lung, or Prostate.

This study mapped the trajectory of depression and its components (depressive mood, somatic expression of depression, and lack of positive affect) for 1 year after an initial cancer diagnosis, revealing the complex nature of the psychological response to the cancer experience. The analysis was based on 4 waves of panel data from 860 older patients with incident breast, colon, lung, or prostate cancer. Predictors of depressive symptoms included cancer site; stage; comorbidities; sociodemographic characteristics; and indicators of physical functioning, symptom severity, and treatment. Patients' overall depressive symptoms declined, especially depressive mood and somatic indicators. By contrast, the sense of well-being did not recover; in fact, it would have deteriorated without improvements in physical functioning and physical symptoms. The present findings show the importance of psychological assessments and symptom management during cancer treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal associations between emotion regulation and depression in preadolescent girls: Moderation by the caregiving environment.

Identifying childhood precursors for depression has been challenging and yet important for understanding the rapid increase in the rate of depression among adolescent girls. This study examined the prospective relations of preadolescent girls’ emotion regulation and parenting style with depressive symptoms. Participants were 225 children and their biological mothers recruited from a larger longitudinal community study. Girls’ observed positive and negative emotion during a conflict resolution task with mothers, their ability to regulate sadness and anger, and their perception of parental acceptance and psychological control were assessed at age 9. Depressive symptoms were assessed by self-report at ages 9 and 10. The results indicated interactions between child emotion characteristics and parenting in predicting later depression. Specifically, low levels of positive emotion expression predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in the context of moderate to high parental psychological control. Low levels of sadness regulation were predictive of high levels of depressive symptoms in the context of low to moderate parental acceptance. Findings from this study support the hypothesis that the prospective association between vulnerabilities in emotion regulation and depression are moderated by the caregiving environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional status, symptoms of depression, and the outcomes of hospitalization in community-dwelling elderly patients

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between symptoms of depression at admission and postdischarge medical outcomes in hospitalized elderly patients. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. METHODS: Patients screened for symptoms of depression at admission using the Geriatric Depression Scale underwent assessment 1 month after discharge to determine outcomes of hospitalization. SETTING: A 370-bed, acute care, community hospital. PATIENTS: A sample of 197 cognitively intact, community-dwelling elderly patients, aged 70 years and older, hospitalized with medical diagnoses, with expected lengths of stay of 48 hours or more. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form instrument was used to obtain data on 1-month postdischarge medical outcomes with respect to physical functioning, health status, and mental status. RESULTS: On admission, a total of 23.9% had symptoms of depression (Geriatric Depression Scale score, > or = 11) that were significantly related to preadmission functional status. In multivariate analyses, depressive symptoms at admission were significantly related to 1-month medical outcomes, independent of functional status. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that depressive symptoms in hospitalized elderly may be reactive to physical disability and characterize a group of patients who have poorer functional status prior to admission. The effect of depressive symptoms on 1-month postdischarge medical outcomes, however, appears to be independent of and in addition to the effects of preadmission functional status.