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

Chapter III: Methodology
these units corresponding to their ID's (also the same as found in Access [2003]). For example if
a unit "sad" was provided by ID 1 and ID 7, the "sad" unit was assigned number "1" and each
unit "sad" from each ID was assigned number 1 in the particular Codebook under the assigned
Category or Cluster that it belonged to in "Depressed Mood." This way, when "sad" was
transcribed into SPSS, "sad" was always appointed number "1." There were 1,473 numbers
representing the different units of information that were entered into SPSS (Version 13, 2004)
allocated to their respective ID numbers.
In developing the categories and subcategories of COAD, the level of severity or the
frequency of the defined categories or subcategories were not identified but just the presence of
the category or subcategory. For example, "sadness" and "deep sadness" were each allocated
into the subcategory of "Sadness" in the "Depressed Mood" category. Although "depressed" is
used in DSM to define depressed mood in MDE as described by the person (DSM-IV-TR; APA,
2000; K-SADS-PL; Kaufman et al., 1996 in Depressive Disorders), the few responses with
"depressed" as a definition of adolescent depression, were placed in the "Miscellaneous"
category because "depressed" was the same word used to define "depression."
No unit of description of adolescent depression was coded as belonging to more than one
category. However, units that belonged to different subcategories in a category were included
once in each separate subcategory if mentioned by the same individual. Hence, the category did
not contain the sum total of its subcategories. The aim was to find out if an individual provided a
definition unit belonging to a subcategory or a category (if it did not contain any subcategories)
rather than how many times each individual provided a unit definition for each construct.
There was an occasion where a cluster of units of descriptions of adolescent depression
such as the subcategory "Quiet/Silent" was assigned to the category "Agitation/Retardation" but
could have also been included as a subcategory in "Social Impairment" (see Discussion Chapter).
Since categorizing the units was guided by the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria for depression,
"Quiet/Silent" has been placed in the "Agitation/Retardation" category because "Retardation" in
the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) includes "speech that is decreased in volume, inflection, amount,
or variety of content, or muteness" (APA, 2000, p. 350). The "Miscellaneous" category that
emerged from adolescents' responses made references to other qualities of depression not related
to the participants' COAD units. Some of these units of information that defined other
dimensions of depression included "hard to deal with without help," "potentially preventable,"
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