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

Chapter II: Literature Review
Mojtabai et al. (2002) found that participants without diagnoses were less likely to perceive a
need for professional help than participants with a diagnosis, 10% versus 32%, respectively.
Mojtabai et al. (2002) also found that mood disorders and the potential for suicide were strong
predictors of perceived need, but that the decision to seek professional help was not. In a general
Canadian population survey of participants aged 15 to 64, Sareen et al. (2002) examined the self-
perceived need for mental health treatment and found that the need, independent of the DSM
diagnoses assessed in their survey, was associated with suicidal thoughts. Sareen et al. (2005a)
concluded that making decisions about who needs mental health care based on DSM diagnoses
may not be optimal. Sareen et al. (2002) suggest that self-perceived need for formal
(professional) support is a better indicator of who needs care for emotional symptoms in the
community than selections based on DSM criteria.
The study findings show that there is under-recognition and under-treatment of
depression in adolescents both in clinical referrals (Cooper-Patrick et al., 1997; Goldberg &
Huxley, 1993) and in young people who decide not to seek help for reasons that are not well
understood. Even when an adolescent has sought help, there are discrepancies and differing
interpretations between the help-seeker, the practitioner, and the parent. After the individual has
sought help, a filter process in accessing services, controlled by practitioners at different levels of
care, sets in (Goldberg & Huxley, 1993). In a study where support services were accessed,
Wildman, Kinsman, and Smicker (2000) reported that children's self-report of difficulties in
daily functioning related to their psychosocial problems differed from the information provided
by their mothers. Moreover, physicians were able to identify less than one in five children who
self-reported problems. Perhaps going further back before access to support services is
considered, and examining adolescents' approach-oriented coping via thinking about own need
to talk to someone when depressed, may be tied to early detection and intervention of depression
in adolescents that may communicate with young people.
Do Adolescents Talk to Someone When Feeling Depressed?
Talking to someone when feeling depressed is a form of approach-oriented coping
behavior or action undertaken by the individual to actively seek social support. Seiffge-Krenke
(1995) defines this distinction as an effort to manage a problem by actively undertaking concrete
actions to solve the problem. This behavioral form of approach-oriented coping by seeking social
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