NCJ Number
216447
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 35 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2006 Pages: 815-826
Date Published
October 2006
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study examined relationships among gender, maternal depressed mood, and children’s trajectories of depressive phenomena across middle childhood and early adolescence.
Abstract
Results found were consistent with those of others who have found that gender differences in depressive symptoms begin to emerge in early adolescence. Findings also corroborated those from other studies that showed an overall positive association between maternal and child depression. Most importantly, the results were consistent with the hypothesis that girls become more vulnerable than boys to the effect of maternal depressive symptoms during adolescence. Results found that maternal depressed mood became less strongly associated with boys’ than with girls’ depressive phenomena as children entered adolescence. Although numerous studies have established that maternal depression is a risk factor for child and adolescent depression, fewer studies have examined how the association between maternal and child depression differs by gender. This study covered a span of time that included middle childhood and adolescence to examine gender differences and developmental changes in the association between maternal depressed mood and children’s trajectories of depressive phenomena. The goal is to enhance the understanding of the relations between gender and trajectories of child depressive phenomena using scale scores from a mainly non-depressed community sample. The study sample consisted of 834 families from 10 Pacific Northwest schools that participated in the Raising Healthy Children project. Tables, figures, references