Children’s Depression Inventory in Estonia

Abstract

The aim of study was to estimate the score of symptoms of depression with the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) among Estonian schoolchildren aged 7-13-year-old, according to age and gender differences, and to identify the components in factor analysis characterising self-reported childhood symptoms of depression. The applicability of the CDI in 7-year-old children was also estimated. The number of subjects in the study was 725 (342 girls and 383 boys), and the mean age was 10.2 (SD 1.7). The mean total score of the CDI for the whole sample was 9.96 (SD = 6.3, range 0-39, median 9.0). The mean scores of symptoms of depression among children did not differ by gender or age. There were no significant differences in the CDI mean scores between 7-year-old compared to older schoolchildren in the present study. Factor analysis obtained five factors: anhedonia, ineffectiveness, negative self-esteem, negative mood and interpersonal problems. Significant gender and age differences were found: girls reported more symptoms of anhedonia and negative self-esteem, and boys reported more symptoms of ineffectiveness. Younger children reported more symptoms of anhedonia and ineffectiveness, and older children negative self-esteem. The study serves as baseline data before intervention of the EC project "European Alliance Against Depression".

Depressive Symptoms, Self-Esteem and Perceived Parent–Child Relationship in Early Adolescence

“…In light of this finding, we focused on this period in order to detect features of depression in a sample of Italian adolescents. The CDI mean score found in our sample was comparable to the one observed in other studies using the same tool, carried out on Italian ( Poli et al, 2003 ; Pantusa et al, 2006 ), Estonian ( Samm et al, 2008 ), Hungarian ( Piko and Balázs, 2012 ) and extra-European ( Twenge and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002 ) samples. Also the percentage of adolescents reporting a depressive level above the risk threshold was consistent with results of other studies using this same self-report questionnaire in Italy ( Frigerio et al, 2001 ; Poli et al, 2003 ) and in other countries ( Masip et al, 2010 ).…”

“…Results of previous research focusing on gender differences in depressive symptomatology were quite inconsistent: although most studies observed a higher depressive level in females than in males ( Poli et al, 2003 ; Piko and Balázs, 2012 ), other studies did not detect gender differences ( Samm et al, 2008 ) or found males scoring higher than females ( Kovacs, 1992 ). Findings of our research revealed only a slightly higher level of depressive symptoms in girls, as compared with boys.…”

“…Most research on this topic found no differences between males and females during childhood (e.g., Twenge and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002 ; Babore et al, 2013 ); the effect of gender on depression seems to appear during adolescence, with a significantly higher level of depressive symptoms among girls than in male peers ( Twenge and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002 ; De Rubeis and Hollenstein, 2009 ; Masip et al, 2010 ; Piko and Balázs, 2012 ; Cerniglia et al, 2014 ). This pattern has been cross-culturally confirmed with a few exceptions: some Authors did not detect gender differences in adolescence ( Helsel and Matson, 1984 ; Samm et al, 2008 ), while others found a higher depressive level in boys than in girls ( Kovacs, 1992 ; Almqvist et al, 1999 ).…”

“…A possible reason to explain this finding might be sought in our sample age: in fact, we considered only the earliest years of adolescence, when gender differences on depressive mood have not yet fully arisen. A support to this hypothesis seems to come from the study of Samm et al (2008) who, considering a sample of late childhood and early adolescence children, did not observe differences between males and females.…”

Parental involvement in the war in Croatia 1991-1995 and suicidality in Croatian male adolescents

“…The scores can also be interpreted by dividing responses into five categories: negative mood, interpersonal problems, ineffectiveness, anhedonia, and negative self-esteem (25,26). Several studies carried out in North America and Europe (including Croatia) investigated the psychometric characteristics of the scale, and corroborated its reliability and validity (25,27-30). According to Croatian standardization data, the Cronbach coefficient was satisfying (α = 0.82) (29).…”