Developmental and symptom specificity of hopelessness, cognitive errors, and attributional bias among clinic-referred youth

Attachment to Peers and School: Longitudinal Moderators of the Relation Between Caregiver Psychological Distress and Adolescent Hopelessness

Research has yet to determine how relationships outside of the family system may buffer negative outcomes associated with hopelessness among racial minority youth. In a sample of Black American youth (N = 512; 49% females) and their parents or caregivers, this study used longitudinal growth models to explore whether youth relationships (attachment to peers and attachment to school) moderated the association between caregiver distress (depressive symptoms and traumatic stress), and youth hopelessness. Adolescents' gender was examined to determine if there were gender differences present in these associations. Four linear growth models showed a significant change in levels of hopelessness over time for youth and a significant positive relation between caregiver distress and youth level of hopelessness. Attachment to peers and attachment to school did not equally moderate the relation between caregiver psychological distress and youth hopelessness. The type of caregiver distress had a differential effect on youth hopelessness in the context of the moderation models and based on gender. The type of caregiver distress had a differential effect on youth hopelessness in the context of the moderation models and based on gender. Implications for the importance of non-familial attachments among Black American youth with distressed parents are discussed.

Associations between cognitive errors and mental health status in New Zealand adolescents

BACKGROUND

Cognitive models of psychopathology suggest that negatively biased thinking styles are involved in the development and maintenance of emotional disturbances.

AIMS

The present study examined the relationships between negative cognitive errors and indices of mental health status (i.e. anxiety and depression) in New Zealand adolescents.

METHOD

A community sample of 490 youth aged 16-18 years completed an anonymous online survey consisting of the Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ), the Trait subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).

RESULTS

Negative cognitive errors correlated positively with greater levels of anxious and depressive symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that overall cognitive error score was a strong predictor of adolescents' self-reported anxious symptoms and, to a lesser extent, depressive symptoms. Moreover, cognitive errors significantly differentiated between adolescents with high scores from adolescents with low scores on both the anxiety (STAI-T) and the depression (CES-D) scales.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings lend support to the generalizability of Beck's cognitive theory to a New Zealand adolescent population and highlight the importance of focusing on prevention and early intervention programmes that directly target these faulty or biased ways of thinking in adolescents with anxious and/or depressive symptoms before meeting diagnostic criteria.

Psychosocial Factors Influencing Individual Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong: a Six-Year Longitudinal Study

This pioneer study investigated the longitudinal development of adolescent subjective well-being (SWB) in terms of life satisfaction and hopelessness. The concurrent and longitudinal influence of different socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., age, gender, economic disadvantage, and family intactness), individual qualities (i.e., resilience, social competence, positive identity, and spirituality), and familial characteristics (i.e., family functioning, and parent-child relationship) on these two aspects of SWB were examined. A total of 3328 Hong Kong students from 28 secondary schools participated in a 6-year longitudinal study. While adolescent life satisfaction showed a declining trend, hopelessness gradually increased across the six years. Resilience, social competence, family functioning, and father-child relational qualities were significant predictors of life satisfaction at the initial status, whereas gender, mother-child relational qualities, positive identity and spirituality predicted changes in life satisfaction over time. Regarding hopelessness, gender, family intactness, resilience, social competence, father-child relational qualities, and mother-child relational qualities were significant correlates at the initial slope, but spirituality and family functioning were the longitudinal predictors of hopelessness over the adolescence period. While the present study showed that some existing Western findings can be replicated in the Chinese context, there are some novel and puzzling observations deserving further scrutiny.

Yes: The Symptoms of OCD and Depression Are Discrete and Not Exclusively Negative Affectivity

Although Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Depression are classified as separate disorders, the high incidence of co-morbidity and the strong correlations between measures of each has led to debate about the nature of their relationship. Some authors have proposed that OCD is in fact a mood disorder while others have suggested that the two disorders are grounded in negative affectivity. A third proposition is that depression is an essential part of OCD but that OCD is a separate disorder from depression. The aim in this study was to investigate these diverse propositions in a non-clinical sample and also to determine whether factors implicated in each, that is anxious and depressive cognitions, hopelessness, and self-criticism, would demonstrate commonality as predictors of the symptoms of OCD and of depression. Two hundred participants (59% female) (M age = 34 years, SD = 16) completed the Padua Inventory, Carroll Rating Scale, Cognitions Checklist, Self-Criticism Scale, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory-Revised and a Negative Affectivity Schedule. Results indicated a strong correlation between OCD and depression, depression, and negative affectivity but a weaker relationship between OCD and negative affectivity. Path analyses revealed that both anxious and depressive cognitions, as well as hostility predicted both disorders but the Beta-weights were stronger on OCD. Self-criticism predicted only depression while hopelessness failed to predict either disorder but was itself predicted by depressive cognitions. Depression was a stronger indicator of negative affect than OCD and while OCD positively predicted depression, depression was a negative indicator of OCD. These results support the hypothesis that OCD and depression are discrete disorders and indicate that while depression is implicated in OCD, the reverse does not hold. While both disorders are related to negative affectivity, this relationship is much stronger for depression thus failing to confirm that both are subsumed by a common factor, in this case, negative affectivity. The proposition that depression is part of OCD but that OCD is not necessarily implicated in depression and is, in fact, a separate disorder, is supported by the current model. Further research is required to support the utility of the model in clinical samples.

Negative Cognitive Errors in Youth: Specificity to Anxious and Depressive Symptoms and Age Differences

Background: Negative cognitive errors are important in the etiology and treatment of youth internalizing problems, but less is known about their unique relations with anxiety and depression. Aims: The major purpose of this study was to examine associations between distinct negative cognitive errors and anxiety and depression in youth. Method: In a community sample of children and adolescents (aged 9–17; N = 278) negative cognitive errors were assessed using the revised version of the Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ-R). Anxiety and depression were assessed with the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children and Children's Depression Inventory, respectively. Results: The strongest predictors of anxiety were the negative cognitive errors “underestimation of the ability to cope” and “mind reading”. The strongest predictors of depression were the errors “selective abstraction” and “overgeneralizing”, with the first error explaining most variance. Analyses of age effects showed that, in comparison to adolescents, children reported higher scores on the total CNCEQ-R score, and on the errors “overgeneralizing”, “personalizing”, and “mind reading”. Conclusions: The findings underscore the importance of researching the role of distinct cognitive processing in youth with anxiety and depression and further development of the CNCEQ-R. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.

Cognitive vulnerabilities and depression versus other psychopathology symptoms and diagnoses in early adolescence

We examined the concurrent associations between multiple cognitive vulnerabilities to depression featured in hopelessness theory, Beck's theory, and response styles theory and depressive symptoms and diagnoses in a sample of early adolescents. We also examined the specificity of these cognitive vulnerabilities to depression versus anxiety and externalizing psychopathology, controlling for co-occurring symptoms and diagnoses. Male and female, Caucasian and African American, 12- to 13-year-old adolescents were assessed in a cross-sectional design. Cognitive vulnerabilities of hopelessness, inferential style, rumination, and self-referent information processing were assessed with self-reports and behavioral tasks. Symptoms and diagnoses of depressive, anxiety, and externalizing disorders were assessed with self-report questionnaires and diagnostic interviews. Hopelessness exhibited the greatest specificity to depressive symptoms and diagnoses, whereas negative inferential styles, rumination, and negative self-referent information processing were associated with both depressive and anxiety symptoms and diagnoses and, in some cases, with externalizing disorders. Consistent with cognitive theories of depression, hopelessness, negative inferential styles, rumination, and negative self-referent information processing were associated with depressive symptoms and diagnoses. However, with the exception of hopelessness, most of the remaining cognitive vulnerabilities were not specific to depression. With further maturation of our sample, these cognitive vulnerabilities may become more specific to depression as cognitive styles further develop and consolidate, the rates of depression increase, and individuals' presentations of psychopathology become more differentiated.

Inappropriate and excessive guilt: instrument validation and developmental differences in relation to depression

Inappropriate or excessive guilt is listed as a symptom of depression by the American Psychiatric Association (1994). Although many measures of guilt have been developed, definitional and operational problems exist, especially in the application of such measures in childhood and adolescence. To address these problems, the current study introduces the Inappropriate and Excessive Guilt Scale (IEGS), assesses its validity for use with children and adolescents, and tests its relation to depression across development. From a sample of 370 children between 7 and 16 years old, results provided (1) evidence that items designed to assess inappropriate and excessive guilt converged onto a single underlying factor, (2) support for the convergent, discriminant, and construct validity of the IEGS in a general youth population, and (3) evidence of incremental validity of the IEGS over-and-above other measures of guilt. Results also supported the hypothesis that inappropriate and excessive guilt as well as negative cognitive errors become less normative and more depressotypic with age.

Potential cognitive, parenting, and developmental mediators of the relationship between ADHD and depression

The authors investigated the role of parent behavior management and locus of control in mediating the relationships between ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and depression in a community sample of 232 children with ADHD and 130 community controls. Results supported the hypothesized path models to depression for older and younger subjects. For older subjects (10 years and older), a cognitive variable, locus of control, partially mediated the relationships between ADHD and parent management and depression. In addition, parent management partially mediated the relationships of ADHD with locus of control and depression. For the younger group (under 8 years old), however, locus of control did not mediate the effects of parent management and ADHD on depression. Consistent with developmental theories, only an environment variable, parent management, explained the relationship between ADHD and depression for this younger group. For children 8-9 years old, both locus of control and parent management partially mediated the ADHD-depression relationship; however, similar to the younger children, locus of control did not mediate the parent management-depression relationships. Implications for designing interventions and prevention strategies for children with ADHD are discussed.

Ten-year review of rating scales. III: scales assessing suicidality, cognitive style, and self-esteem

OBJECTIVE

This is the third article in a series of 10-year reviews of rating scales. Here, the authors review scales that are useful in tapping the affective disturbances experienced with various psychiatric disorders, including suicidality, cognitive style, and self-esteem.

METHOD

The authors sampled articles incorporating these constructs over the past 25 years and selected scales with established uses or new development. Those presented here have adequate psychometric properties and high utility for efficiently elucidating youths' functioning, plus either wide literature citations or a special niche.

RESULTS

These scales were developed bimodally. Many were developed in the 1980s when internalizing disorders were elucidated, but there has been a resurgence of interest in these constructs. Scales assessing suicidality have clear constructs, whereas scales of cognitive style demonstrate deficits in developmental relevance, and scales of self-esteem suffer from lax constructs.

CONCLUSIONS

The constructs underlying these scales tap core symptoms of internalizing disorders, mediate the expression of affective disturbances associated with various disorders, and depict the impairments resulting from these disorders. Overall, the psychometrics of these scales are adequate. These scales provide a broader representation of youths' functioning than that conveyed with diagnostic scales alone.

Ten-year review of rating scales. II: Scales for internalizing disorders

OBJECTIVE

This article, the second in the Journal's series of 10-year updates on rating scales, summarizes scales assessing internalizing disorders.

METHOD

The authors sampled articles on mood and anxiety disorders over the past 25 years, selected scales with multiple citations over many years, and reviewed their properties. Those with adequate psychometric properties, plus continued wide literature citations or a current special niche, are presented here.

RESULTS

Rating scales for depression were developed and/or examined in the 1980s. Despite generally strong properties, they lack clear construct validity. Most have parent-report forms that broaden their suitability with youths. Anxiety scales were developed bimodally. Those developed in the 1960s to 1970s were downward modifications of adult scales. They have been criticized for unclear constructs and unsuitability for youths. Newer scales developed in the 1990s have addressed these problems and have parent-report forms. However, their utility is still being determined.

CONCLUSIONS

Rating scales can reliably, validly, and efficiently measure youths' internalizing psychopathology. They have great utility in research, treatment planning, and accountability in practice. However, the user must define the goals of measurement, consider the construct the scale measures, and use the scale within its defined capabilities. The use of more than one scale for a task is recommended.