Different studies have investigated the adolescents’ causal beliefs about their major depressive disorder. However, the beliefs of the parents about the causes of their adolescent’s depression and...Show moreDifferent studies have investigated the adolescents’ causal beliefs about their major depressive disorder. However, the beliefs of the parents about the causes of their adolescent’s depression and the extent to which the parents agree with their adolescent on these causes has not been studied yet. In addition, the relation between this agreement and the parental bond has also not been studied yet. The aim of the current study was thus to investigate the possible relationship between the extent to which the parents of adolescents with depression and their adolescent share the same ideas on the causes of the adolescent’s depression and the parental bond. This was tested with a multivariate analysis of variance using data of the qualitative interview and the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) from the RE-PAIR study. The agreement score was dichotomized into a low agreement group, reflecting the group of parents that agreed with 49% or below of the causes their adolescent mentioned, and a high agreement group, reflecting the group of parents that agreed with 50% or above of the causes their adolescent mentioned. The main finding of this study was that the two most frequently mentioned causes, ‘problematic social contacts’ and ‘heredity/genes’, overlapped between adolescents, mothers and fathers. Other causes that were frequently mentioned by adolescents did differ from the causes most frequently mentioned by their parents. For example, both mothers and fathers frequently mentioned causes that were related to the category ‘characteristics of the child’, while adolescents did not mention this frequently. The second main finding of this study was that there was not a significant difference between the low and high agreement group on the parental bond scores for both mothers and fathers. A limitation was that the current sample was not normally distributed on the categories of gender. Further research should examine a different population.Show less
Mostly based on the theoretical framework regarding the depression-distortion hypothesis, the aim of this study was to answer the following research question: ‘To what extent is the severity of the...Show moreMostly based on the theoretical framework regarding the depression-distortion hypothesis, the aim of this study was to answer the following research question: ‘To what extent is the severity of the adolescents’ depressive symptoms associated with discrepancies between adolescents and their parents, regarding their perceptions of parental behaviors during different interaction tasks?’. In order to answer this question, the participants of this study were divided into three groups of families (consisting of one adolescent and at least one parent). The distribution of these groups was based on the depression severity score of the adolescent as measured by the PHQ-9 (low, mild and moderate to severe). The families in each of these groups participated in three interaction tasks (i.e., a problem solving task, an event planning task and a reminiscence task). After participating in each of these tasks, the adolescents and their parent(s) both separately completed the same questionnaire regarding parental behavior during the task (listening skills, empathy, criticism and dominance). Subsequently, the groups of adolescents and their parent(s) were compared, based on their evaluations of parental behavior during the tasks. The results of these comparisons showed no significant associations between the severity of the adolescents’ depressive symptoms and their as well as their parent(s)’ perception on parental behavior during the tasks. In addition, there was no significant association between the severity of the adolescents’ depressive symptoms and parent-adolescent discrepancies regarding the evaluation of parental behavior during the tasks. This implicates that the results of this study are rather discrepant with the theoretical framework regarding the depression-distortion hypothesis.Show less
