Depressive symptoms and life events in physically ill hospitalized adolescents

To study life events and depressive symptoms in adolescents hospitalized for physical illness, we administered the Coddington Life Events Survey and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to 43 acutely ill adolescents, 42 chronically ill adolescents, and 140 adolescents from a general population. There were no differences between the three groups in total BDI, Psychological BDI, and Coddington Life Change Categories adjusted for hospitalization. The Somatic BDI was significantly greater in the acutely ill and chronically ill than in the general population sample (p less than 0.01). In the chronically ill, the Family Life Change score correlated with the psychological BDI (r = 0.44, p less than 0.01) but the Undesirable Life Change score did not. In the acutely ill and the general population, the Undesirable Life Change Score correlated with the Psychological BDI (r = 0.44, p less than 0.01), (r = 0.43, p less than 0.01) but the Family Life Change Score did not.