A SURVEY OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS, SYNDROME AND DISORDER IN A CHILD PSYCHIATRIC POPULATION

Abstract

SUMMARY Admission symptoms on 210 children referred to UCLA‐Neuropsychiatric Institute's Child Division were gleaned for those relating to depression. Children were additionally asked to complete a self‐rating depression inventory (SCDI) which assessed cross sectionally and systematically the presence of a depressive syndrome. A subsample of 102 children and parents were psychiatrically interviewed and diagnosed by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM III) criteria. Sixty per cent of the children had depressive symptoms, 49% a cross‐sectional depressive syndrome and 28% met criteria for the presence of an affective disorder. Although depressive symptoms and syndrome appeared statistically significantly more frequent in children with affective disorder, they appeared often in children with other diagnoses. The authors feel that care must be taken in the use of the term childhood depression lest future epidemiologic, treatment and natural history studies be complicated by imprecise terminology.