Depressive Symptoms in Low-Income, Urban Adolescents: Cognitive and Contextual Factors

Abstract

This study examined the relationships among cognitive variables, family immigration history, negative life events, and depressive symptoms in a sample of 306 low-income, urban fifth- and sixth-grade children. Explanatory style and negative automatic thoughts were the cognitive variables examined. There were two key findings. First, children who were immigrants reported significantly more depressive symptoms, more negative life events, and more negative automatic thoughts than children who were not immigrants. Second, both explanatory style and negative automatic thoughts were significantly associated with depressive symptoms above and beyond the effects of child immigration history and negative life events. Finally, negative automatic thoughts mediated the relationship between child immigration history and depressive symptoms. We discuss the clinical and research implications of these findings.

Associations Between Children's Depressive Symptoms, Life Events, and Family Factors Among School‐Aged Children

“…The family's poor financial situation may be due to several reasons such as illness in the family, unemployment, or parental separation, and all these factors have an impact on interaction within the family. As reported previously, 17,23 we found that foreign background was associated with children's depressive symptoms in all models. Earlier studies have found that parents' depressed mood is associated with children's depressive symptoms.…”

“…14 Furthermore, Cardemil et al found that immigrant children have more depressive symptoms and experience negative life events more often than children not from an immigrant background. 17 Several previous studies have found that negative life events are one of the most significant predictors of depressive symptoms in childhood. 8,9,15,[18][19][20][21][22][23] Life events such as parental separation or divorce, death of a family member or another close person, 19,23 family environment events such as frequent parental arguments, the arrival of a new sibling, or a stepparent moving in 19 are strongly associated with depressive symptoms.…”

“…Low parental socioeconomic status at childbirth is associated with depressive symptoms in later childhood and adolescence, 16 and in low‐income families where divorce and separation rates are higher and where children more often live with one parent, access to parental support may be more limited than among children who live with both parents 14 . Furthermore, Cardemil et al found that immigrant children have more depressive symptoms and experience negative life events more often than children not from an immigrant background 17 …”

Development of an Empirically Based Preventive Intervention for Depression in Preadolescent African American Girls

“…Each targeted domain has demonstrated associations with depressive symptoms in samples of girls that included substantial representation of African American girls. Targeted domains included (a) health and wellness (Grant et al 2004a, b, c), (b) emotion expression/regulation (Keenan et al 2009a, b), (c) confident communication (Keenan et al 2010), (d) positive emotionality (Feng et al 2009), (e) negative automatic thoughts/attributions (Cardemil et al 2014; Carter et al 2015; Thurm et al 2014), (f) problem solving/coping (Gaylord-Harden et al 2009; Grant et al 2004a, b, c), and (g) dyadic connectedness (Gaylord-Harden et al 2009; Grant et al 2005). …”

Features of dental care for children with autism spectrum disorders

“…Специалисты Всемирной организации аутизма в 2008 г. констатировали, что в мире на 150 детей приходился один, страдающий аутизмом. За последнее десятилетие количество детей с РАС увеличилось в десять раз [5]. Такая тенденция характерна для многих стран, где ведется статистика этого заболевания.…”