Can subsyndromal manifestations of major depression be identified in children at risk?

Abstract

These results suggest that the CBCL Anxiety/Depression scale can help identify children at highest risk for pediatric MDD. If implemented clinically, this scale would cost-effectively screen children and identify those most in need of early intervention resources to impede the progression of depression.

Association of Intrinsic Brain Architecture With Changes in Attentional and Mood Symptoms During Development

“…Although children with parents who have had depression are at an elevated risk for developing depression, most children who develop depression do not come from families with an identified history of depression. 63 Further, the longitudinal nature of this study supports the validity of using RSNs to predict the worsening of psychiatric symptoms in childhood.…”

“…61,62 A subthreshold elevation on the anxiety/depression subscale of the CBCL in preadolescence predicts future development of MDD. 63 However, in conjunction with behavioral measures, neuroimaging measures may identify children at the greatest risk for developing psychiatric disorders with greater confidence and at an earlier age. Therefore, in this study, we investigated whether rs-fMRI data could predict future CBCL scores in a community sample of 54 children.…”

Subsyndromal Manifestations of Depression in Children Predict the Development of Major Depression

“…We recently showed that subsyndromal symptoms of MDD, as expressed in subsyndromal elevations of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) Anxiety/Depression subscale, helped identify children at elevated risk for MDD within the pool of children at genetic risk by virtue of having a parent with MDD. 24 In that study, the 20% of children with subsyndromal scores on the CBCL Anxiety/Depression scale differed significantly from the other 80% of children at genetic risk for MDD in multiple non-overlapping correlates, including the development of MDD and other psychopathological conditions, as well as social and academic deficits. In contrast, children without this profile were indistinguishable from healthy controls on all measures assessed.…”

“…However, as this was a cross-sectional investigation, uncertainties remained as to whether this profile has predictive utility in helping forecast the clinical course for children at risk for MDD into adolescent and young adult years, a peak developmental period for the manifestation of MDD in youth. 24…”

“…The years of follow-up after the baseline visit (10 years for boys and 11 years for girls) were pre-determined in the original study. 13,23 As previously reported in the baseline assessment, 24 we stratified the sample of youth into four groups based on the presence or absence of parental mood disorders, including parental MDD and BPD, and the presence or absence of subclinical elevations of CBCL Anxiety/Depression subscale (t-score of ≥55 and <70, ≥0.5 SD and <2 SD) at baseline in childhood. The four groups consisted of: 1) Children with parental mood disorder without subsyndromal elevations of the CBCL Anxiety Depression scale (High-Risk, N = 172), 2) Children without parental mood disorder and subsyndromal elevations of CBCL Anxiety/Depression subscale (SubMDD, N = 22), 3) Children with both parental mood disorder and subsyndromal elevations of CBCL Anxiety/Depression subscale (High-Risk + SubMDD, N = 22), and 4) Children with neither parental mood disorder nor subsyndromal elevations of CBCL Anxiety/Depression subscale (Controls, N= 186).…”