Adolescent depressed mood and parental unhappiness.

Lasko, David S. ; Field, Tiffany M. ; Gonzalez, Ketty P. 等

It has been found that depression negatively affects adolescent development and functioning (McConville & Bruce, 1985; Petersen et al., 1992). The adolescent's own depression, however, is not the only variable that affects functioning. Parental unhappiness may also contribute to difficulties experienced during the teen years (Petersen et al., 1992).

Adolescent depression has been linked to serious psychological problems including suicide (Brown, Overholser, Spirito, & Fritz, 1991; Kandel, Raveis, & Davies, 1991; Rosenstock, 1985; Withers & Kaplan, 1987), eating disorders (Petersen et al., 1992), and substance abuse (Kandel et al., 1991). Adolescent depression has also been related to less specific problems including poor self-esteem (Petersen et al., 1992) and peer and family relationships. For example, an inverse relationship has been noted between depression and peer popularity in adolescents (Jacobsen, Lahey, & Strauss, 1983). Further, depressed adolescents feel less closeness and contact with friends, and more feelings of peer rejection have been related to adolescent depression (Petersen et al., 1992). Family correlates of depression have included decreased family support (Feldman, Rubenstein, & Rubin, 1988) and perceived rejection by parents (Cytryn & McKnew, 1980; Harris & Howard, 1987). The most often addressed, and perhaps strongest, family correlate of depression in adolescents is parental depression, although Downey and Coyne (1990) explicitly warn against "mother bashing" and relate a number of variables that could account for the association between parental and adolescent depression.

The present study was conducted for the following reasons. In the above studies, the relationship between depression and only one, or a few, other variables was investigated. To obtain a more integrated picture of adolescent depression, we wished to examine multiple variables in the same study. In addition, most of the published studies have assessed the effects of parental depression as perceived by the adolescent. Although parental depression is noted to affect adolescent functioning (Beardslee, Bemporad, Keller, & Klerman, 1983; Weissman, Prusoff, Gannon, Merikangas, Leckman, & Kidd, 1984), the adolescent's perspective on parents' unhappiness may also have an important influence. In the current study, adolescents, rather than the parents themselves, were asked to rate parental unhappiness. In addition, they were asked for their perceptions of other variables noted to affect adolescents including family relationships (intimacy, social support, and responsibilities), intimacy with friends, psychological variables (self-esteem, depression) and problem behaviors (risk-taking and substance use).

Subjects

Several scales were administered to 455 adolescents ranging in age from 14 to 19 years (the entire freshman to senior class in a suburban school) (M age = 16.6). Their ethnicity distribution was 33% white non-Hispanic, 48% Hispanic, 12% black, and 5% Asian, with the remaining 2% having a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Their socioeconomic status distribution was 17% lower, 50% middle, and 33% upper class based on the Hollingshead Index.

Procedure

The scales were administered anonymously to all students who were present during their English class near the end of the school year. The students' English teacher monitored their behavior during the administration. Students were informed that the purpose of the study was to learn more about their interpersonal relationships and how they felt about different areas affecting their lives. The scales required 45 minutes to complete, and answers were checked on computer scan sheets. Test-retest reliability was assessed at a one-month interval on the scales designed for this study.

Measures

The individual scales tapped the following:

Background and Lifestyle Questionnaire (Field & Yando, 1991). This questionnaire was developed for the study due to the absence of adolescent lifestyle questionnaires in the literature. It includes demographic questions (gender, ethnicity, hobbies, gifted program status, parents' marital status and education level, and self-perceived socioeconomic status), relationship questions (number of close friends, gender of friends, closeness of siblings and other relatives, important person, relationship of that person, boyfriend/girlfriend), lifestyle questions (exercise, eating concerns, violence/angry feelings, suicidal thoughts, and drug and alcohol use) and happiness questions (self-assessed happiness and perceived parental happiness).

Intimacy (Blyth & Foster-Clark, 1987). This measure (Cronbach's alpha = .85; test-retest reliability = .81) includes intimacy with mother, father, and best friend questions. Examples of the 24 questions, which are divided into 3 subscales (8 items each for mother, father, and best friend) are: How much do you go to this person for advice? The five-choice answers vary from "not at all to "very much." Higher scores signify more intimacy.

Social Support (Field & Yando, 1991). This scale (Cronbach's alpha = .82; test-retest reliability = .85) was formulated by combining items from the Background and Lifestyle. Questionnaire. These include parent relationship items, questions on closeness to siblings and other relatives, number of close friends, and whether the student has a steady girlfriend/boyfriend. Higher scores signify higher social support.

Family responsibility-taking (Field & Yando, 1991). This 10-item scale (Cronbach's alpha = .65; test-retest reliability = .81) was developed for the study in order to tap students' feelings of responsibility-taking within the family, a measure we could not find in the literature. Examples of the questions include inquiries about doing housework, making mother/father (to whomever the student feels closest) feel better when she/he is "down," and having more responsibilities than do peers. Likert-type answers with four choices range from "rarely" to "very often."

Self-esteem (Field & Yando, 1991). This scale was developed because piloting suggested that other adolescent self-esteem scales were considered too lengthy and too cumbersome or complex by some adolescents, and we wanted to ensure ease of completion for all adolescents. On this scale students are asked to compare themselves to their peers on the following 20 descriptors: confident, anxious, happy, fearful, competitive, ambitious, hard-working, good-looking, good in sports, creative, independent, angry, honest, generous, caring, expressive, outgoing, sentimental, good at school work, and moody (Cronbach's alpha = .66; test-retest reliability = .83). The questions were asked as follows: Compared to my peers I would say I am generally (e.g., confident: (1) less; (b) the same; (c) more).

Risk-taking. (Field & Yando, 1991). The risk-taking scale was designed to tap sports-related and danger-related risk-taking behavior, and was accordingly divided into these two subscales (Cronbach's alpha = .69; test-retest reliability = .84). Thirteen items comprise the "sports-related" risk-taking subscale, and nine items comprise the "danger-related" risk-taking subscale.

Drug use. Four items taken from the background information questionnaire include questions on smoking and the use of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. The answers to these four-choice Likert-type questions range from "regularly" to "never," with higher scores signifying more drug use. These questions are asked in the past tense so that students, even though the scale was anonymous, would not feel incriminated as they marked their answers.

Depressed mood (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, CES-D; Radloff, 1991). This 20-item scale was included to assess depressed symptoms. The subject is asked to report on his/her feelings during the preceding week. The scale has been standardized for high school populations (Radloff, 1991) and has adequate test/retest reliability (.60 over several weeks), internal consistency (.80 -.90)and concurrent validity (Wells, Klerman, & Deykin, 1987). Test-retest reliability over a one-month period on this sample was .79, suggesting some short-term stability of depressive symptoms. A score of 19 on the CES-D is considered the cutoff for depression in high school students (Radloff, 1991). Thus, high and low depressed symptoms groups were obtained by splitting subjects above and below 19.

Parental happiness. To assess parental happiness, subjects had been asked to rate on a four-point scale how often they think their mother and father were happy (from "never" to "most of the time"). To obtain low and high parental happiness groups, "never" and "rarely" happy were grouped together for a low happiness group and "sometimes" and "most of the time" happy were grouped together for a high happiness group. Perceived happiness was assessed rather than depression in order to avoid "faking" good types of responses. Thus, results appear in the opposite direction from the adolescent depression analyses.

RESULTS

A Multivariate Analysis of Variance was performed using Wilks' Lambda. This was followed by univariate ANOVAs and multiple contrasts by t-tests. The analyses were limited to subjects on whom all variables were available. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance yielded main effects for both adolescent depressed mood (F(10, 267) = 9.1, p [less than] .001) and gender (F(10, 267) = 11.4, p [less than] .001) (see Table 1). The interaction effect was not significant. Follow-up ANOVAs on the dependent measures yielded main effects for both sex and depressed mood for several of the variables. The depressed mood group was: (1) less intimate with mother (F = 14.40, p [less than] .001); (2) less intimate with father (F = 14.60, p [less than] .001); (3) experienced less social support (F = 10.90, p [less than] .001); and (4) had lower self-esteem (F = 28.70, p [less than] .001).

More females than males scored above 19 (66% females vs. 34% males, [[Chi].sup.2] = 21.16, p [less than] .001), and their scores were higher on the CES-D (M = 24.0 vs. 17.9; F = 4.93, p [less than] .001). Main effects for gender in the MANOVA suggested that females were: (1) more intimate with mother (F = 4.50, p [less than] .05); (2) less intimate with father (F = 5.19, p [less than] .05); (3) more intimate with friends (F = 30.20, p [less than] .001); (4) had lower sports risk-taking scores (F = 12.80, p [less than] .001); (5) had lower danger risk-taking scores (F = 64.90 p [less than] .001); and (6) had higher substance abuse scores (F = 4.20, p [less than] .05).

Separate analyses were conducted for maternal and paternal happiness. No gender differences were found for the adolescents' rating of their parents' happiness. Therefore, multivariate t-tests (Hotellings [T.sup.2]) were conducted after splitting the subjects into high versus low parental happiness groups.

Only 9% of the adolescents reported that their mothers were unhappy sometimes or most of the time. Adolescents who perceived their mothers as less happy reported: (1) less intimacy with mother (F = 26.20, p [less than] .01); (2) less intimacy with father (F = 10.82, p [less than] .05); (3) lower levels of social support (F = 26.52), p [less than] .01); and (4) greater depressed mood (F = 9.32, p [less than] .01) (see Table 2). Only 17% of the adolescents reported that their fathers were unhappy sometimes or most of the time. Those who reported low paternal happiness also reported: (1) less intimacy with mother (F = 4.11, p [less than] .05); (2) less intimacy with father (F = 66.23), p [less than] .001); (3) lower levels of social support (F = 28.51, p [less than] .01), and (4) having more depressed mood (F = 9.20, p [less than] .01). Thus, similar patterns of results emerged from the maternal and paternal happiness effects analyses.

[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED]

[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 2 OMITTED]

DISCUSSION

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between adolescent depressed mood and other adolescents' perceptions of self and their relationships. The importance of adolescents' relationships with their parents is often overlooked given the general emphasis on peer influences during adolescence. The results of the current study suggest, however, that for adolescents from a broad age range, parental variables are more related to adolescent depressed mood than are friend variables. In this way, the current study on depressed mood is consistent with the literature that has linked adolescent clinical depression to a variety of family variables (e.g., Cytryn & McKnew, 1980; Feldman et al., 1988; Harris & Howard, 1987). This association is suggested by the data in several ways. First, teenagers with depressed mood vs. teenagers without depressed mood saw themselves as significantly less intimate with both mother and father, yet there were no depressed mood/nondepressed mood group differences on their intimacy with friends. In addition, depressed mood adolescents perceived themselves as receiving less social support, a variable that may be influenced by their perceptions of parental relationships. Unlike studies on clinically depressed adolescents (e.g., Kandel et al., 1991), adolescent depressed mood was not related to risk taking and dug use, possibly because the adolescents were predominantly middle SES and attended a suburban school. These features of the sample, of course, potentially limit the generalizability of these data.

The parental unhappiness effects raise the question of whether adolescent perceptions are as useful as parental self-report for gauging parents' unhappiness. The relationship between adolescent-rated parental happiness and ratings of intimacy with that parent may indicate a real relationship problem. Less happy parents may simply be less intimate with their teenage children. However, the reverse is also possible. Perhaps adolescents simply rate their parents' happiness more negatively because they do not feel close to them. While the parents may not actually be unhappy, the relationship problem may lead the adolescent to see them as unhappy. Further research using both adolescent and parental measures of parental depression is needed to determine which of these explanations is more valid. This would address the interesting question of whether actual parental depression or simply perceived unhappiness is the factor most related to adolescent functioning. The fact that twice as many fathers as mothers (17% vs. 9%) were rated as being unhappy when depression is twice as common in women as men raises the question of distorted perceptions regarding parental unhappiness. The adolescents' depressed mood may distort their perceptions, which suggests that distorted perceptions are an important target for intervention. Moreover, a response set or reverse "halo effect" is possibly operating here. The adolescents may also be exaggerating their own unhappiness which in turn is reflected in a very high percentage of high scores on the CES-D (32% above the cutoff of 16 used in depression research). The cut-off point may not be appropriate for this sample given this high rate of "depression."

The adolescents' lack of family and social support as opposed to peer intimacy or other adolescent problems were important correlates of adolescent depressed mood and parental unhappiness. Unlike the clinically depressed adolescent data which suggest that peer and behavior problems (e.g., risk taking and drug use) are important intervention factors, the data on these depressed mood adolescents (as many as 32% of the high school sample) suggest that interventions may have to focus as much on perceived problems with parents as they do on adolescents' peer and behavior problems.

REFERENCES

Beardslee, W.R., Bemporad, J., Keller, M.B., & Klerman, G. L. (1983). Children of parents with major affective disorder: A review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 825-832.

Blyth, D.A., & Foster-Clark, F.S. (1987). Gender differences in perceived intimacy with different members of adolescents' social networks. Sex Roles, 17, 689-719.

Brown, L.K., Overholster, J., Spirito, A., & Fritz, G.K. (1991). The correlates of planning in adolescent suicide attempts. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 30(1), 95-99.

Cytryn, L., & McKnew, D.H., Jr. (1980). Affective disorders in childhood. In H.I. Kaplan, A.M. Friedman, & R. Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (3rd ed.), (pp. 2798-2809). Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.

Downey, G., & Coyne, J., C (1990). Children of depressed parents: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 50-76.

Feldman, S.S., Rubenstein, J.L., & Rubin, C. (1988). Depressive affect and restraint in early adolescents: Relationships with family structure, family process and friendship support. Journal of Early Adolescence, 8(3), 279-296.

Field T.M., & Yando, R. (1991). Adolescents' Self-Perceptions Scales. Unpublished.

Harris, I.D., & Howard, K.I. (1987). Correlates of depression and anger in adolescence. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 4, 199-203.

Jacobsen, R., Lahey, B., & Strauss, S. (1983). Correlates of depressed mood in normal children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 11, 29-39.

Kandel, D.B., Raveis, V.H., & Davies, M. (1991). Suicidal ideation in adolescence: Depression, substance use and other risk factors. Special issue: The emergence of depressive symptoms during adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20(2), 289-309.

McConville, B.J., & Bruce, R.T. (1985). Depressive illnesses in children and adolescents: A review of current concepts. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 30, 119-129.

Petersen, A.C., Compas, B.E., Brooks-Gunn, J., Stemmler, N., Ely, S., & Grant, K. (1993). Depression in adolescence. American Psychologist, in press.

Radloff, L.S. (1991). The use of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale in adolescents and young adults. Special Issue: The emergence of depressive symptoms during adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20(2), 149-166.

Rosenstock, H.A. (1985). Depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in 900 adolescents: An analysis. Crisis, 5, 89-105.

Weissman, M.M., Prusoff, B. A., Gammon, G., Merikangas, K. R., Leckman, J. F., & Kidd, K. K. (1984). Psychopathology in the children (ages 6-18) of depressed and normal parents. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 23(1), 78-84.

Wells, V.E., Klerman, G.L., & Deykin, E.Y. (1987). The prevalence of depressive symptoms in college students. Social Psychiatry, 22, 20-28.

Withers, L.E., & Kaplan, D.W. (1987). Adolescents who attempt suicide: A retrospective clinical chart review of hospitalized patients. Professional Psychology Research and Practice, 18, 391-393.