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

Chapter II: Literature Review
version (K-SADS-PL) (Kaufman, Birmaher, Brent, Rao, & Ryan, 1996). 7 It was designed for
use in assessing current or present (within the past year) episodes of psychopathology. All
versions of the K-SADS begin with a parent interview, and then follow with an interview of the
adolescent.
Tools used to assess depressive symptomatology in adolescents enable a researcher or
practitioner to classify different types of problems, to communicate via a common language with
other researchers, practitioners, and affected adolescents, and to discover possible implications
for treatment. The Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS; Reynolds, 1987; RADS-2;
Reynolds, 2002), the measure used to assess depressive symptomatology in this study, is a self-
report tool designed to evaluate the severity of depressive symptomatology in adolescents. It has
been extensively tested throughout the world, and has well established psychometric properties,
including validity and reliability. Its assessment criteria coincides with depression criteria
stemming from the DSM-III (APA, 1980) for the RADS (Reynolds, 1987), and the DSM-IV-TR
(APA, 2000) for the RADS-2 (Reynolds, 2002). This scale, can be administered individually or
in groups by researchers, clinicians, or trained lay interviewers.
Rationale for Choice of Measure for this Study
Although there does not seem to be an ideal robust core of instruments to assess
adolescent depression, there is a need for an easily administered, valid, and reliable tool to
measure depressive symptomatology in adolescents to provide accountability in clinical practice
and intervention programs. Most instruments are used to assess MDD according to DSM or ICD
criteria. The strength of such interviews is that they are typically coded and rule-bound, and
emphasize direct face-to-face interpersonal communication. However, there are a number of
weaknesses in the structured interviews (e.g., K-SADS). They may be too rigidly reliant on the
DSM criteria which are often insensitive to developmental and relationship issues. Besides they
are time consuming (two to three hours), are intended for use by researchers and clinicians
highly trained in their use, and have not been shown to function as an index of severity with
sensitivity to change. Further, most commonly used diagnostic instruments (e.g., K-SADS) show
7 The K-SADS-PL was one of the sources that served as a guide in creating categories and subcategories of
adolescent depression generated by adolescents' definitions of depression in this study.
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