how do adolescents define depression? - cIRcle - University of ...

subcategories described by < 5% of participants) were: Somatic Symptoms (n = 1, .3%);
Bored/Indifferent (n = 14, 4.2%); Pessimism (n= 25, 7.5%); Moody (n = 27, 8.1%);
Aggression/Bullied (n = 27, 8.1%); and Fear (n = 30, 9.0%).
Chapter IV: Results
Depressed Mood and Social Impairment categories, as defined by the high percentage of
participants' descriptions of adolescent depression units, are found as criteria used to diagnose
MDE in the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000; see Table 5 for criteria for MDE in the Classification of
Participants' Units of Adolescent Depression section in Methodology Chapter) and the K-SADS-
PL (Kaufman et al., 1996). However, some descriptions or subcategories that constitute
Depressed Mood as described by the participants in this study, differ or add to the depression
criteria found in the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) or the K-SADS-PL (Kaufman et al., 1996).
Further, adolescents highlighted Social Impairment, generated by their COAD units, as the key
impairment. This finding contrasts with the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criterion for MDE which
integrates social impairment within a general functioning impairment (see Criterion C in Table
5).
Association of Adolescent Depression Constructs to Grade, Gender, Depressive
Symptomatology, Self-Recognition of Depression, and a Pathway to Talking to
Someone at the Time of Feeling Depressed
The second question in this study was, "Do adolescents' conceptions of depression vary
by grade, gender, depressive symptomatology, self-recognition of depression, thinking about
own need to talk to someone, and talking to someone when feeling depressed?" To address this
question, percentages were calculated to present the data (Blaikie, 2003) and chi-square (x 2) tests
of significance at .05 level were used to compute the associations between these dichotomous
variables (Blaikie, 2003; Carlson Jones, 2001; Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics Unit, 1995;
Tabachnik & Fidell, 2001; Yang & Chen, 2006).
In this second section, a presentation is put forth of the analyses used to examine the
associations of the generated categories and subcategories of adolescent depression to grade
level; gender; depressive symptomatology; self-recognition of depression; thinking about own
need to talk to someone; and talking to someone at the time of feeling depressed. Given the vast
amount of data produced by these analyses, only significant x 2 and near significant results are
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