Developmental perspectives in child and adolescent depressive symptoms in a community sample

This developmental study provides some normative data on the distribution of depressive symptoms in 210 children and adolescents in three different age groups (8, 12, and 17 years) from a nonclinically referred sample. The Child Assessment Schedule and other instruments were used. Studying depression from a dimensional point of view, the authors found withdrawal, pessimism, horrible dreams, and suicidal ideation and tendency in the different age groups to be closely related to depressive symptoms.