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

Chapter IV: Results
As can be seen in Table 19, the only construct that was significant for both boys and girls
where the higher percentages were found in grade 8, was in Depressed Appearance. Depressed
Mood and its subcategory Inner Pain, were significant findings for boys only where higher
percentage of boys in grade 8 than in grade 11 provided COAD units in this construct.
Association between Adolescent Depression Constructs and Depressive Symptomatology
To address the association between the adolescent depression constructs and depressive
symptomatology, I first present univariate analyses findings of depressive symptomatology
followed by the x2 tests results. To distinguish the participants into those screened as
"Depressed" and "Not Depressed," scores from the RADS-2 measure were transformed and
collapsed into two values of "Depressed" and "Not Depressed." The cut-off score for
"Depressed" contained potentially mild to severe depression (score of 76 and above; see also
Measures section in the Methodology Chapter), and a score of 75 and below represented "Not
Depressed." To assess the occurrence of screened depression, frequency counts were tabulated
for those individuals with a cut-off score of 76 and above.
Thirty (9%) participants were screened as depressed: 23 girls (12.5% of the girls in the
study) and 7 boys (4.7% of the boys in this study). In grade 8, seven girls (10.6% of the girls)
and five boys (10.4% of the boys) were screened as depressed. In grade 11, a higher percentage
of girls (n = 16, 13.6% of the girls) than boys (n = 2, 2.0% of the boys) were screened as
depressed. The differences in the percentages between the grade 11 girls and the grade 11 boys
screened as depressed are higher than epidemiological community studies on gender differences
in depressive symptomatology, which are more often in the ratio of two to three girls to a boy
after puberty (see Gender section in the Literature Review). However, the percentage of
adolescents screened as depressed and the overall ratio of 23 girls versus 7 boys screened as
depressed reflect the findings in the literature (Kessler & Walters, 1998).
Chi-square tests results revealed significant differences between adolescent depression
constructs and depressive symptomatology in the categories, Feel Trapped and Anxiety
Symptoms; and in subcategories, Inner Pain and Anxious/Stressed. Table 20 lists the outcomes
of x2 analyses. Thirty percent of "Depressed" participants versus 9.6% of "Not Depressed"
adolescents mentioned Inner Pain, a characteristic not discussed as a clinical or threshold
criterion for depression in the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000), x2 (1, N= 332) = 11.20,p = .001. A
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