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

Chapter IV: Results
Association of Self-Recognition of Depression to Depressive Symptomatology,
and to Thinking About Own Need to Talk and Talking to Someone at the Time of
Feeling Depressed
To address the third question concerned with examining the association of self-
recognition of depression to depressive symptomatology, and to approach-oriented coping
specifically via adolescents' thinking about own need to talk to someone and talking to someone
at the time of feeling depressed, frequencies, percentages, and a x 2 tests were calculated at a
significance level of .05. Gender frequencies are also sequentially presented in these two tables
and one figure to illustrate these separate associations.
To examine the first part of the third question, the association between self-recognition of
depression and depressive symptomatology, self-recognition of depression was separated into
those adolescents who self-recognized depression in the past two weeks prior to the survey and
those who did not recognize depression in themselves. The two-week time recall was used to
reflect the same time frame used as a criterion for depression in the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000).
Table 26 displays the findings of this association between self-recognition of depression and
depressive symptomatology. Thirty adolescents were screened as "Depressed" using the RADS-
2 (Reynolds, 2002): 7 (5%) boys and 23 (13%) girls. In the past two weeks prior to the survey 31
adolescents self-recognized depression. Out of the 31 adolescents who self-recognized
depression in the past two weeks, 14 (45%) adolescents were screened as "Depressed" and 17
(55%) participants as "Not Depressed." A higher percentage (46.7%) of "Depressed" adolescents
versus "Not Depressed" participants (5.7%) self-recognized depression, x 2(1, N= 328) = 53.44, p
= .00. There were 13 (9%) boys and 18 (10%) girls who self-recognized depression in the past
two weeks. Seventy-one percent of the seven boys screened as "Depressed," self-recognized
depression in the past two weeks prior to the survey. In contrast, 39% of the 23 girls screened as
"Depressed" self-recognized depression in the past two weeks prior to the survey.
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