Acculturation Stress Magnifies Child Depression Effect of Stressful Life Events for Latinx Youth 3 Years Later.

Introduction: Experiences of stressful life events (SLEs) during childhood are associated with greater risk for youth psychopathology. Although SLEs are reported in greater frequency by Latinx families, Latinx populations remain largely absent in the SLE literature. Furthermore, Latinx populations face added stressors related to socio-political climate, acculturation, and racism and discrimination. The purpose of this study was to explore the intersection between parent-reported SLEs and acculturation (i.e., socio-political climate-related) stressors for Latinx youth. Greater frequency of caregiver reported SLEs were hypothesized to predict higher depressive symptoms in their children three years later, and acculturation stress was hypothesized to amplify these effects. Method: The community-recruited, low-income sample for this study consisted of 198 Latinx caregivers (98.5% mothers, 77.3% foreign-born) and their children (M age = 7.4, 47.5% female). Study hypotheses were tested using MPlus. Results: Consistent with prior literature, more SLEs reported at age 7 by parents were associated with more child-reported depressive symptoms at age 10 but only among boys. However, for both boys and girls, there was a significant interaction between acculturation stress and family SLEs. Specifically, as the amount of acculturation stress reported at age 7 increased, the negative impact of family SLEs on child-reported depressive symptoms at age 10 was magnified, regardless of gender. Conclusion: Adding to the literature on SLEs within Latinx families, these results indicate that acculturation and socio-political climate stressors need be considered in discussions of the effects of life stress on Latinx youth and their families.

DNA methylation in regulatory elements of the FKBP5 and NR3C1 gene in mother-child binomials with depression.

BACKGROUND: The FKBP5 and NR3C1 genes play an important role in stress response, thus impacting mental health. Stress factor exposure in early life, such as maternal depression, may contribute to epigenetic modifications in stress response genes, increasing the susceptibility to different psychopathologies. The present study aimed to evaluate the DNA methylation profile in maternal-infant depression in regulatory regions of the FKBP5 gene and the alternative promoter of the NR3C1 gene. METHODS: We evaluated 60 mother-infant pairs. The levels of DNA methylation were analyzed by the MSRED-qPCR technique. RESULTS: We observed an increased DNA methylation profile in the NR3C1 gene promoter in children with depression and children exposed to maternal depression (p < 0.05). In addition, we observed a correlation of DNA methylation between mothers and offspring exposed to maternal depression. This correlation shows a possible intergenerational effect of maternal MDD exposure on the offspring. For FKBP5, we found a decrease in DNA methylation at intron 7 in children exposed to maternal MDD during pregnancy and a correlation of DNA methylation between mothers and children exposed to maternal MDD (p < 0.05). LIMITATIONS: Although the individuals of this study are a rare group, the sample size of the study was small, and we evaluated the DNA methylation of only one CpG site for each region. CONCLUSION: These results indicate changes in DNA methylation levels in regulatory regions of FKBP5 and NR3C1 in the mother-child MDD context and represent a potential target of studies to understand the depression etiology and how it occurs between generations.

Mothers' and Children's Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Parenting Stress.

The present study, carried out during the first peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, aimed at investigating the mental health of mothers and children during the nationwide lockdown. More specifically, the study investigated children's depression and mothers' individual distress and parenting stress, in comparison with normative samples. The mediating effect of mothers' parenting stress on the relationship between mothers' individual distress and children's depression was also explored. Finally, the study analyzed whether children's biological sex and age moderated the structural paths of the proposed model. A sample of 206 Italian mothers and their children completed an online survey. Mothers were administered self-report questionnaires investigating individual distress and parenting stress; children completed a standardized measure of depression. Mothers' individual distress and parenting stress and children's depression were higher than those recorded for the normative samples. Mothers' parenting stress was found to mediate the association between mothers' individual distress and children's depression. With respect to children, neither biological sex nor age emerged as significant moderators of this association, highlighting that the proposed model was robust and invariant. During the current and future pandemics, public health services should support parents-and particularly mothers-in reducing individual distress and parenting stress, as these are associated with children's depression.

Parental Depressive Symptoms, Parent Attributional Style, and Child Coping as Predictors of Depressive Symptoms in Children of Parents with Anxiety or Mood Disorders.

Few studies have examined the effects of parental depressive symptoms on children in China. The present study examined the relationships between parental depression, parental attributional style, children's coping strategies and 5-12-year-old children's depressive symptoms in a sample of Chinese children whose parents had been diagnosed with an anxiety or a mood disorder. The present study confirmed that children of parents with anxiety or mood disorders would show high levels of depressive symptoms. Parents with an optimistic or neutral attributional style rated their children as showing fewer depressive symptoms than parents with a pessimistic style. This study showed a significant positive relationship between children's disengagement coping and children's reports of depressive symptoms. The findings highlight the need for early identification of, and support and intervention programs for, parents suffering from depression and children of depressed parents as a means of protecting the psychological well-being of both parents and children.

A Multi-Cohort Examination of the Independent Contributions of Maternal Childhood Adversity and Pregnancy Stressors to the Prediction of Children's Anxiety and Depression.

Women's social experiences can have long-term implications for their offspring's health, but little is known about the potential independent contributions of multiple periods of stress exposures over time. This study examined associations of maternal exposure to adversity in childhood and pregnancy with children's anxiety and depression symptoms in a large, sociodemographically diverse sample. Participants were 1389 mother-child dyads (child age M = 8.83 years; SD = 0.66; 42% Black, 42% White; 6% Hispanic) in the ECHO-PATHWAYS Consortium's three U.S. pregnancy cohorts. Women reported their exposure to childhood traumatic events (CTE) and pregnancy stressful life events (PSLE). Children self-reported on their symptoms of anxiety and depression at age 8-9 years. Regression analyses estimated associations between maternal stressors and children's internalizing problems, adjusting for confounders, and examined child sex as a modifier. Exploratory interaction analyses examined whether geospatially-linked postnatal neighborhood quality buffered effects. In adjusted models, PSLE counts positively predicted levels of children's anxiety and depression symptoms ([ßAnxiety=0.08, 95%CI [0.02, 0.13]; ßDepression=0.09, 95%CI [0.03, 0.14]); no significant associations were observed with CTE. Each additional PSLE increased odds of clinically significant anxiety symptoms by 9% (95%CI [0.02, 0.17]). Neither sex nor neighborhood quality moderated relations. Maternal stressors during pregnancy appear to have associations with middle childhood anxiety and depression across diverse sociodemographic contexts, whereas maternal history of childhood adversity may not. Effects appear comparable for boys and girls. Policies and programs addressing prevention of childhood internalizing symptoms may benefit from considering prenatal origins and the potential two-generation impact of pregnancy stress prevention and intervention.

Designing a Tool to Address the Depression of Children During Online Education.

Advances in communication and information technology have changed the way humans interact. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology for communication has caused depression and anxiety, including among children and teens. Depression among children and teens may go unrecognized and untreated, as parents and teachers may have difficulty recognizing the symptoms. COVID-19 has changed traditional learning methods, forcing children to stay home and connect through online education. Although some children may function reasonably well in less-structured environments, many children with significant depression suffer a noticeable change in social activities, loss of interest in an online school, poor online academic performance, or changes in appearance. Home quarantine has affected children's mental health, and it has become challenging for school counselors to predict depression in many children participating in online education. This study aims to design and develop a tool for predicting depression among children aged 7 to 9 years old by recording students' online classes and sending a note to the child's academic file. The idea of needing this tool arose as an output for applying the design thinking approach to the online education website during COVID-19. This inspired the authors to combine the lecture recordings and the prediction of depression into one tool. Image processing techniques are applied to generate the results predicted by the model on the collected videos. The overall accuracy for classifying depressed and not depressed videos is 89%.

Exposure to coal ash and depression in children aged 6-14 years old.

BACKGROUND: When coal is burned for energy, coal ash, a hazardous waste product, is generated. Throughout the world, over 1 billion tons of coal ash is produced yearly. In the United States, over 78 million tons of coal ash was produced in 2019. Fly ash, the main component of coal ash contains neurotoxic metal (loid)s that may affect children's neurodevelopment and mental health. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between fly ash and depressive problems in children aged 6-14 years old. METHODS: Children and their parents/guardians were recruited from 2015 to 2020. Tobit regression and logistic regression were used to assess the association between coal fly ash and depressive problems. To determine fly ash presence, Scanning Electron Microscopy was conducted on polycarbonate filters containing PM10 from the homes of the study participants. Depressive problems in children were measured using the Depressive Problems DSM and withdrawn/depressed syndromic problem scales of the Child Behavior Checklist. RESULTS: In covariate-adjusted Tobit regression models, children with fly ash on the filter had higher scores on the DSM Depressive Problems (3.13 points; 95% CI = 0.39, 5.88) compared with children who did not have fly ash on the filter. Logistic regression supported these findings. CONCLUSION: Coal ash is one of the largest waste streams in the U.S, but it is not classified as a hazardous waste by the Environmental Protection Agency. To our knowledge, no studies have assessed the impact of coal ash on children's mental health. This study highlights the need for further research into the effects of coal ash exposure on children's mental health, and improved regulations on release and storage of coal ash.

Why is my world so dark? Effects of child physical and emotional abuse on child depression: The mediating role of self-compassion and negative automatic thoughts.

BACKGROUND: The adverse effects of childhood maltreatment on the mental health of individuals have received increasing attention. However, it is unclear whether the effects of invisible emotional abuse and visible physical abuse differ on child depression and the mediating processes under this relationship. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate whether self-compassion and negative automatic thoughts mediated the effects of physical abuse and emotional abuse on child depression and the underlying mechanistic differences. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Using a two-wave longitudinal design, a total of 946 elementary school students completed the self-report questionnaires at two-time points, including child abuse, self-compassion, negative automatic thoughts, and depression. METHODS: This study constructed structural equation models (SEM) to examine the mediating role of self-compassion and negative automatic thoughts between emotional/physical abuse and child depression. RESULTS: After controlling for demographic covariates, structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that only physical abuse significantly and positively predicted child depression directly (ß = 0.16, p < 0.01). Emotional abuse was positively associated with child depression through self-compassion (ß = 0.02, p < 0.05) and negative automatic thoughts (ß = 0.02, p < 0.05), while physical abuse influenced child depression only via negative automatic thoughts (ß = 0.07, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The findings showed a strong association between emotional/physical abuse and child depression, but there were mechanistic differences under these relationships. Therefore, we also need to pay equal attention to the adverse effects of emotional abuse on children.

Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of Children's Depression Inventory 2 Short Version as a Screening Tool: A Comparison With the Standard 28-Item Version.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the reliability and validity of the Korean version of Children's Depression Inventory 2 Short Version (CDI 2:S) in comparison with its full-length version (CDI 2) as a screening tool for depressive youth. METHODS: A total of 714 children from the community and 62 psychiatric patients were enrolled in this study. The Korean version of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL-K) served as the reference standard for computing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. To evaluate the ability of the CDI 2 and CDI 2:S to discriminate major depressive disorders, areas under the curves (AUCs) were compared. To investigate psychometric properties of the CDI 2:S, internal consistency was calculated and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. RESULTS: For the CDI 2, the cutoff at 20 yielded the best balance between sensitivity (83%) and specificity (91%). For the CDI 2:S, the cutoff point of 10 resulted in high sensitivity (82%) and high specificity (93%). The short form was proven to be as sensitive and specific as the CDI 2. Further analyses confirmed that the CDI 2:S also had good reliability and validity. CONCLUSION: The CDI 2:S, a sensitive and brief form of the CDI 2, may serve as a better option in time-constrained psychiatric settings.

The association of different parenting styles among depressed parents and their offspring's depression and anxiety: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Parenting styles play a critical role in children's development, especially for those in families with a depressed parent. To date, no study has explored whether youth perceptions of parenting style are heterogeneous in families with a depressed parent or whether heterogeneous parenting styles are associated with children's internalizing symptoms. METHODS: Participants were children aged 8-16 years who had a parent with major depressive disorder; they were enrolled through their parents, who were outpatients at two hospitals in Ningxia. Parenting styles were measured using the Parental Bonding Instrument. Youth depression and anxiety were measured using the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children and the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders, respectively. We applied latent profile analysis to identify the subtypes of parenting styles with similar patterns. Differences between subtypes in relation to demographic variables and parenting style scores were calculated using one-way ANOVAs, Wilcoxon rank sum tests, and chi-squared tests. Bivariate logistic analyses were conducted to examine the associations between parental bonding subtypes and children's depression and anxiety. RESULTS: Four parenting styles were identified through latent profile analysis: care-autonomy, overprotection-indifference, indifference, and undifferentiated parenting. Youth with care-autonomy parents had a lower risk of depression (OR: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.06-0.41) and anxiety (OR: 0.22; 95% CI: 0.10-0.48), while indifference parenting increased children's risk of depression (OR: 5.29; 95% CI: 1.30-21.54) more than undifferentiated parenting. CONCLUSIONS: Children with a depressed parent had heterogeneous perceptions of parenting styles. Mothers' and fathers' parenting styles were largely congruent. Care-autonomy parenting (high care and high autonomy) may decrease children's risk of depression, whereas indifference parenting (low care and autonomy) may increase their risk of depression.

Maternal and paternal depression and child mental health trajectories: evidence from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

BACKGROUND: The relationships between offspring depression profiles across adolescence and different timings of parental depression during the perinatal period remain unknown. AIMS: To explore different timings of maternal and paternal perinatal depression in relation to patterns of change in offspring depressive mood over a 14 year period. METHOD: Data were obtained from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Parental antenatal depression (ANTD) was assessed at 18 weeks gestation, and postnatal depression (PNTD) at 8 weeks postpartum. Population-averaged trajectories of offspring depressive symptoms were estimated using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) on nine occasions between 10 and 24 years of age. RESULTS: Full data were available for 5029 individuals. Offspring exposed to both timings of maternal depression had higher depressive symptoms across adolescence compared with offspring not exposed to ANTD or PNTD, characterised by higher depressive symptoms at age 16 (7.07 SMFQ points (95% CI = 6.19, 7.95; P < 0.001)) and a greater rate of linear change (0.698 SMFQ points (95% CI = 0.47, 0.93; P = 0.002)). Isolated maternal ANTD and to a lesser extent PNTD were also both associated with higher depressive symptoms at age 16, yet isolated maternal PNTD showed greater evidence for an increased rate of linear change across adolescence. A similar pattern was observed for paternal ANTD and PNTD, although effect sizes were attenuated. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to the literature demonstrating that exposure to two timings of maternal depression (ANTD and PNTD) is strongly associated with greater offspring trajectories of depressive symptoms.

Depression and learning problems in children: Executive function impairments and inattention as mediators.

This study examines the relationship between depression and learning problems in children, focusing on the mediating role of executive function impairments and inattention. A sample of 115 children, aged 7 to 12 years, who had difficulties in school activities, were tested over the past three years, with different measures assessed by different raters. Regression analyses were employed in analyzing the data. The psychometric tests used were Child Depression Inventory (CDI) and Conners 3rdEdition. Children with a high level of depressive symptoms have also a very high level of learning problems, executive function impairments and inattention. Executive function impairments and inattention add significant explanatory variance for learning problems in school-aged children over and above depression. Executive function impairments and inattention have a partial mediating effect on the relationship between depression and learning problems. The assessment of the executive functions and attention is an important part in the assessment of children with depression; intervention and treatment programs for depression should include components focused on executive functions and attention.

Immigrant children in Turkey a descriptive study: Determining the depression levels of children who have been exposed to forced migration.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the level of depression in children aged 6-17 years who had been subject to forced migration. DESIGN AND METHOD: This study was a descriptive design. The sample included comprised 200 children aged 6-17 years who had experienced forced migration. FINDINGS: About 69.5% of the children who participated in the research migrated from Syria due to war. Participants' mean Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) score was 13.65 ± 8.58; a CDI score of 19 and higher is considered to indicate depression. CONCLUSION: It was found that the depression levels of the migrant children were low. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Psychiatric nurses should understand risk factors for depression when providing care to immigrant children.

Maternal Depression History Moderates the Association Between Criticism (but not Praise) and Depressive Symptoms in Youth.

Children of mothers with past depression are at increased risk for developing the disorder themselves; however, the specific factors that increase their risk are unclear. Aberrant reactivity to social experiences may be one characteristic that increases risk for depression in offspring. This study investigates whether mothers' depression history is associated with increased reactivity to criticism and decreased reactivity to praise in offspring by examining 72 youths (ages 8-15). Every evening for 21 days, youths reported their depressive symptoms and whether they were criticized and/or praised by their mothers, fathers, siblings, and friends, resulting in 1,382 data entries across participants. Mothers reported their own depression history and current depressive symptoms. Maternal depression history moderated offspring's response to criticism. Although all youths reacted to perceived criticism from family members with transient increases of depressive symptoms, only children of mothers with higher (vs. lower) levels of past depression exhibited cumulative, person-level associations between perceived criticism and their own depressive symptoms. Additionally, only children of depressed mothers exhibited increases in depressive symptoms on days in which they were criticized by friends. Perceived parental praise was associated with lower levels of depression in youths regardless of maternal depression. Youth depressive symptoms were more strongly related to their parents' (vs. siblings or friends) criticism and praise, highlighting parents' more central role in youth depression risk. Taken together, our results reveal that maternal depression history is associated with increased reactivity to perceived criticism across relational contexts potentially contributing to youths' risk for developing depression.

Assessment of the cognitive attentional syndrome in children: an adaptation of the CAS-1.

BACKGROUND: Research suggests that the metacognitive model is applicable to clinical child populations. However, few measures related to the model are available for younger age groups. A key concept of the model is the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS), which encompasses the individual's worry and rumination, maladaptive coping strategies, and metacognitive beliefs. While the CAS has been successfully measured in adults, this has not yet been attempted in children. AIMS: The aim of this study was to adapt a measure of the CAS for use with children and investigate the measure's associations with anxiety, worry, depression and metacognitions. METHODS: Our study included 127 children with anxiety disorders aged 7-13 years. The adult measure of CAS was adapted for use with children and administered at pre- and post-treatment. We examined the correlations between variables and the ability of the CAS measure to explain variance in anxious symptomatology, as well as the measure's sensitivity to treatment change. RESULTS: The adapted measure, CAS-1C, displayed strong associations with overall anxiety, depression, worry and metacognitions. The CAS-1C explained an additional small amount of variance in anxiety and worry symptoms after accounting for metacognitions, which may be due to the measure also assessing thinking styles and coping strategies. Furthermore, the measure displayed sensitivity to treatment change. CONCLUSIONS: The child measure of the CAS is a brief tool for collecting information on metacognitive beliefs and strategies that maintain psychopathology according to the metacognitive model, and it can be used to monitor treatment changes in these components.

Relationship of affect intolerance with anxiety, depressive, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in youth.

BACKGROUND: Structural research on the construct of affect intolerance (an overarching latent construct indicated by distress tolerance and anxiety sensitivity) has only been conducted in adults. Given that a self-report measure of distress tolerance was recently validated for youth and affect intolerance may be a core mechanism of transdiagnostic interventions for internalizing disorders, we examined how affect intolerance relates to internalizing symptoms in youth. We predicted that a latent affect intolerance factor (indicated by distress tolerance and anxiety sensitivity) would be associated with self and parent-reports of youth anxiety, depressive, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, controlling for age and gender. METHODS: At a pre-treatment evaluation, youth with a primary depressive, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder (N=277) aged 8-17, and their parent, completed questionnaires. RESULTS: Greater levels of the affect intolerance factor predicted greater youth- and parent-reported youth anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, controlling for age. LIMITATIONS: Future research should replicate findings in a sample with a greater proportion of depressed youth and utilize experimental or longitudinal methods. CONCLUSIONS: Importantly, distress tolerance and anxiety sensitivity are core transdiagnostic processes that can be targeted in cognitive-behavioral interventions. Future research should examine how transdiagnostic interventions for youth with internalizing disorders can target these cross-cutting emotional vulnerabilities.

Teacher Involvement Prevents Increases in Children's Depressive Symptoms: Bidirectional Associations in Elementary School.

There is accumulating evidence that social relationships can buffer the development of depression in childhood and adolescence. However, few studies have focused on teacher-child relationships in the elementary school years. In addition, research that has examined bidirectional relations between teacher involvement and depressive symptoms is virtually absent in this age period. The participants in this study were 570 children and 30 teachers from 15 elementary schools. Data on children's depressive symptoms (peer- and teacher-reports) and teacher involvement (teacher-reports) were collected in the fall and spring of Grade 2 and Grade 3 (four waves). As expected, negative cross-time effects of teacher involvement on depressive symptoms were found within grade 2 and 3. In addition, a negative cross-time effect of depressive symptoms on teacher involvement was found in grade 3 only. The results thus indicate the protective role of teacher involvement in the development of depressive symptoms but also suggest that teachers may become less involved over time when they perceive a child as more depressed.

Epigenetic variation at the SLC6A4 gene promoter in mother-child pairs with major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Genetic and epigenetic variations of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) have been related to the etiology of depression. The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism at the SLC6A4 promoter region has two variants, a short allele (S) and a long allele (L), in which the S allele results in lower gene transcription and has been associated with depression. The short S-allele of 5-HTTLPR polymorphism of this gene has been associated with depression. In addition to molecular mechanisms, exposure to early life risk factors such as maternal depression seems to affect the development of depression in postnatal life. The present study investigated the association of 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and CpG DNA methylation (5mC) levels of an AluJb repeat element at the SLC6A4 promoter region in mother-child pairs exposed to maternal depression. METHODS: We analyzed DNA samples from 60 subjects (30 mother-child pairs) split into three groups, with and without major depression disorder (DSM-IV) among children and mothers. The genotyping of 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and quantification of 5mC levels was performed by qualitative PCR and methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme digestion, and real-time quantitative PCR (MSRED-qPCR), respectively. RESULTS: The sample analyzed presented a higher frequency of S allele of 5-HTTLPR (67.5%). Despite the high frequency of this allele, we did not find statistically significant differences between individuals carrying at least one S allele between the depression and healthy control subjects, or among the mother-child pair groups with different patterns of occurrence of depression. In the group where the mother and child were both diagnosed with depression, we found a statistically significant decrease of the 5mC level at the SLC6A4 promoter region. LIMITATIONS: The limitations are the relatively small sample size and lack of gene expression data available for comparison with methylation data. CONCLUSION: In this study, we demonstrated a repeat element specific 5mC level reduction in mother-child pairs, concordant for the diagnosis of depression.

Evaluation of the effects of a childhood depression prevention program.

The study aimed to design and evaluate a program for the prevention of childhood depression ("Pozik-Bizi" [in English, "Live-Happily"]), comparing its effects with a socio-emotional intervention program based on cooperative play. The sample comprised 420 students aged 7 to 10 years from the Basque Country, 51.9% were randomly assigned to the experimental condition ("Pozik-Bizi") program and 48.1% to the control group ("Play program"). Using a pretest-posttest repeated measures experimental design, 7 evaluation instruments were administered. When comparing the two interventions, it was confirmed that those who participated in the "Pozik-Bizi" program significantly decreased their level of clinical maladjustment, school maladjustment, emotional, and behavioral problems, and they increased positive behaviors that inhibit depression. However, the cooperative play program improved self-concept and social skills significantly more than the "Pozik-Bizi" program. The effect size in all the variables was small. The discussion analyzes the effectiveness of specific programs of prevention of childhood depression versus global programs of social-emotional development. This work provides a program to prevent childhood depression that has been shown to be effective in the reduction of clinical variables. In addition, this study confirms the positive potential of programs of cooperative play, to increase self-concept and social skills.

Crianças institucionalizadas e sintomas depressivos por meio do Rorschach e do CDI / Institutionalized children and depressive symptoms by the Rrorschach and CDI / Niños institucionalizados y sintomas depresivos a través del Rorschach y CDI

Os sintomas depressivos em crianças podem ser sutis e variados. Este estudo investigou sintomas depressivos em crianças institucionalizadas para a adoção, comparando-as com crianças não institucionalizadas, utilizando para isso o método de Rorschach Sistema Compreensivo e o CDI. Participaram do estudo 84 crianças, com idades entre 7 e 11 anos. Para a análise de dados foram utilizados: o teste t de student, a correlação de Pearson e o d de Cohen. Os resultados revelaram que as crianças institucionalizadas se mostraram com mais baixa autoestima, problemas afetivos, ideações suicidas, dificuldade escolar e dificuldade na relação com o outro quando comparadas com as crianças não institucionalizadas. Esses dados sugerem uma possível síndrome depressiva, sendo aconselhável a investigação clínica mais aprofundada para providenciar diagnóstico e tratamento, especialmente nas crianças institucionalizadas. Além disso, foram observadas associações entre as variáveis do Rorschach e CDI. Implicações desses achados e sugestões de pesquisas futuras são apresentadas ao final.

Depressive symptoms in children can be subtle and varied. This study investigated depressive symptoms in institutionalized children for adoption, comparing them with non-institutionalized children, using the Rorschach method Comprehensive System and CDI. Fifty male and female children took part in this study. These children were between seven and eleven years old. For the analysis of data, it was used: Student's t test, Pearson's correlation, and Cohen's d. The results revealed that the institutionalized children showed lower self-esteem, affective problems, suicidal ideation, school difficulties and impairments in the relationship with the other when compared to non-institutionalized children. These data suggest a possible depressive syndrome, and the further clinical investigation is advisable to provide diagnosis and treatment, especially to institutionalized children. In addition, associations were found between the variables of the Rorschach and CDI. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are presented at the end.

Los síntomas depresivos en los niños pueden ser sutiles y variados. Este estudio investigó síntomas depresivos en niños institucionalizados para la adopción, comparándolos con niños no institucionalizados, utilizando para ello el método de Rorschach Sistema Comprensivo y el CDI. En el estudio participaron 84 niños, con edades entre 7 y 11 años. Para el análisis de datos se utilizaron: la prueba t de student, la correlación de Pearson y el d de Cohen. Los resultados revelaron que los niños institucionalizados se mostraron con más baja autoestima, problemas afectivos, ideaciones suicidas, dificultad escolar y dificultad en la relación con el otro en comparación con los niños no institucionalizados. Estos datos sugieren un posible síndrome depresivo, siendo aconsejable la investigación clínica más profunda para proporcionar diagnóstico y tratamiento, especialmente en los niños institucionalizados. Además, se observaron asociaciones entre las variables de Rorschach y CDI. Las implicaciones de estos hallazgos y sugerencias de investigaciones futuras se presentan al final.