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

Chapter III: Methodology
Some categories based on the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria for depression were
combined or broken down depending on the frequency count and the commonalities of these
categories. For example, the two DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria for a MDE, "Weight and
Eating Changes," and "Sleep Changes," were combined into the construct or category in this
study, "Appetite/Weight/Sleep Changes." The DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criterion, "Distress,
Social, Occupational, and Functional Impairment" (see Criterion C in Table 5), was segmented
into "Social Impairment" and Functional Impairment/Distress" categories in this study.
When clusters of similar or repetitive units of information filled ample numbers within a
specific category such as "Depressed Mood," a subcategory defining that particular group of
units of information was created within that category "Depressed Mood." For example,
subcategory "Sadness" was created when the frequency of similar and like words or units
presented themselves in sufficient frequencies in the "Depressed Mood" category to create the
"Sadness" subcategory (Appendix J). The development of subcategories was mainly guided by
the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria for depression and, more infrequently, the K-SADS-PL
(Kaufman et al., 1996), the Clinician's Thesaurus (Zuckerman, 2005), and subcategory
"Irritability" (Russell & Fehr, 1994).
If the content of similar units of information did not fit any selected source for criteria for
depression, new categories and subcategories were developed to contain the distinct meaning of
the message units (e.g., category "Contextual/Causal" or subcategory "Inner Pain") defined by
the participants in their descriptions of depression. Allowance for keeping the emergent extra
categories, which simply were not found in the designated resources, was justifiable to avoid a
potential for circular reasoning by trying to fit all categories particularly into DSM-IV-TR (APA,
2000) or K-SADS-PL (Kaufman et al., 1996) depressive symptomatology criteria.
The coding manual of construct categories and subcategories of COAD, and their
respective units of information, emerged as an iterative process refined as content analysis
progressed to develop the constructs of adolescent depression. Delineated themes and subthemes
of similar or repetitive units were systematically sorted within the emerging categories and
subcategories of adolescent depression (Appendix J, Appendix L) until relatively discrete and
meaningful categories and subcategories of COAD were identified.
Every raw text COAD unit was assigned to the developed categories and subcategories in
the codebook. For example, the word unit "confused" was assigned to the DSM-IV-TR (APA,
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