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Adolescent Girls I Self-Reported Mood Disturbance in a Community Population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Elizabeth Monck ,
Philip Graham ,
Naomi Richman  and
Rebecca Dobbs
Elizabeth Monck*
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
Philip Graham
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
Naomi Richman
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
Rebecca Dobbs
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
*
Elizabeth Monck, Behavioural Sciences Unit, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH
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Abstract

Background

This study was undertaken to fill gaps in our knowledge of the rate of mood disorder in teenage girls in transition from school to further education, employment or unemployment.

Method

Girls aged 15–20 years (n = 529) whose names were drawn from general practitioner age/sex registers were interviewed at home and completed the Great Ormond Street Mood Questionnaire. Their mothers completed the 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Social background variables were obtained.

Results

Of the girls, 20.8% scored over the cut-off point previously established to indicate risk of psychiatric disorder. Scoring over the cut-off point was not associated with age or parental social class. It was associated with parental separation/divorce (P < 0.004), with maternal self-report on the GHQ (P < 0.001), and with parental unemployment (P < 0.04). Lowest self-report scores were obtained by girls who had left school and were in employment (P < 0.01).

Conclusions

About one in five of girls aged 15–20 are at risk of affective disorder. Self-reported mood disturbance is associated with a wide range of social and familial background variables, but not with age or parental socioeconomic status.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 165 , Issue 6 , December 1994 , pp. 760 - 769
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1994 

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Footnotes

1.

The key relative was defined as the mother (or surrogate mother), but in households in which there was no mother, key relatives were defined as fathers (or father substitutes), other relatives acting in loco parentis, husbands or boyfriends. Eight girls lived alone or in hostels; there was no key relative in these households.

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