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Adolescent Girls II Background Factors in Anxiety and Depressive States

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 investigated the prevalence and background variables associated with anxiety and depressive disorders occurring in a community population of older teenage girls.

Method

Girls aged 15–20 years (n = 529) whose names were drawn from general practitioner age/sex registers completed self-report Great Ormond Street Mood Questionnaires. From this sample, 143 girls (69 with high self-report scores and 74 controls) were intensively interviewed. Information was obtained on confiding/supportive relationships, family arguments and rows, quality of marital relationship, and degree of parental control. Psychiatric state was assessed by use of the Clinical Interview Schedule to provide a Total Weighted Score. A modified form of the Bedford Life Events and Difficulties Schedule was applied.

Results

The estimated one-year prevalence rate for psychiatric disorder was 18.9%, and 16.9% for depression and anxiety disorders. Using a logit analysis, it was shown that maternal distress (P < 0.02) and the quality of the mother's marriage (P < 0.02) were independently associated with the presence of depression and anxiety disorders.

Conclusions

About 17% of girls in a community sample living at home showed a depression or anxiety disorder. Even in late adolescence, the presence of a mood disorder is closely linked to the quality of family relationships within the home.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 165 , Issue 6 , December 1994 , pp. 770 - 780
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 surrogate fathers), other relatives acting in loco parentis, husbands or partners. Eight girls lived alone or in hostels; there was no key relative in these circumstances.

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