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Depression in child psychiatric inpatients: cognitive and attributional patterns
1Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine 90024.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
|December 1, 1988
Summary
Depressed children exhibit more negative thinking and attributional styles than their peers. However, these patterns do not persist after remission, suggesting childhood depression may be heterogeneous.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
Background:
- Cognitive and learned helplessness models identify maladaptive cognitive and attributional patterns as central to depressive disorders.
- Understanding these patterns in children is crucial for effective diagnosis and treatment of childhood depression.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine cognitive and attributional patterns in depressed children, nondepressed children, and children with remitting depression.
- To investigate the heterogeneity of cognitive patterns within childhood depressive disorders.
- To determine if cognitive and attributional patterns are persistent traits in children with a history of depression.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of cognitive and attributional styles across three groups: currently depressed children, never-depressed children, and children in remission from depression.
- Assessment of hopelessness, self-perceptions, and attributional styles.
Main Results:
- Depressed children reported significantly higher levels of hopelessness and more negative self-perceptions across diverse domains compared to nondepressed controls.
- Dysfunctional attributional styles were more prevalent in depressed children.
- A significant portion (55%) of depressed children displayed pervasive maladaptive cognitive patterns, while 45% showed patterns similar to nondepressed children, indicating heterogeneity.
- Children with remitting depression exhibited cognitive and attributional patterns similar to nondepressed children, challenging the notion of persistent, trait-like patterns.
Conclusions:
- Childhood depressive disorders may present with heterogeneous cognitive and attributional profiles.
- Cognitive and attributional patterns associated with depression in children appear to be state-dependent rather than persistent traits.
- These findings have implications for understanding the nature of childhood depression and tailoring interventions.