The major aims of this study are to provide descriptive data on the occurrence of depressive symptoms among adolescents, to investigate the antecedents and consequences of such symptoms, and to examine how stages of adolescent development impact on the manifestation and sources of depressive symptoms.
These aims are focused on the objective of providing information relevant to the development of preventive interventions for this population. These are important areas of inquiry because depressive symptoms appear to be extremely common among adolescents and to have important sequalae. This study will provide information about the seriousness of symptoms by estimating their prevalence and duration and be assessing their consequences. It will also provide information relevant to planning preventive interventions by identifying risk factors, subgroups of adolescents most at risk, and psychosocial factors that protect high risk adolescents. A three-wave panel survey of a community sample of adolescents will be conducted. The sample will consist of approximately 1,200 individuals between the ages of 12 and 17 comprised of three major racial-ethnic groups -- whites, blacks and Hispanics. Subjects will be selected using a multistage probability sampling design of Los Angeles County. It will thus be representative of the social and economic groups in the region. Three personal interviews will be conducted at intervals of six months with the same respondents. These interviews will ask about depressive symptoms, stress and stress-mediators including self-concept, social support and coping. Interviews will also be conducted with the adolescents' parents to elicit sociodemographic information, depressive symptoms, stress and coping. Data analysis will proceed in several major directions. The prevalence of depressive symptoms will be described for the total sample and for various sociodemographic groups. Developmental differences in the manifestation of depressive symptoms will be modeled using confirmatory factor analysis. The panel data will be examined to determine the extent to which symptoms are ephemeral, persistent or recurrent. Risk factors that differentiate these symptom types will also be examined. Latent variable causal models and interactive stress-mediating models will be assessed for the three waves of panel data. Early, middle and late adolescents will be compared to determine whether there are age-related differences in the antecedents or consequences of depressive symptoms. The combined parental-adolescent data will be used for an extensive analysis of familial influences in adolescent emotional distress.
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