Correlates of depressive symptoms in adolescents

The relationship between a number of social and cognitive variables and depressive symptomatology was evaluated in a sample of public middle-school and high-school students. The variables measured included stressful life events, locus of control, causal attributions, and means-ends problem-solving abilities. Higher levels of depression were found to be associated with a more external locus of control and a tendency to attribute outcomes to causes which are internal, stable, and global. Parental divorce and socioeconomic status were also found to be associated with higher levels of depression. No relationship was found to exist between either amount of life stress or problem-solving ability and depression. The implications of these results for delineating the underlying dimensions of depression in adolescents are discussed.Previously Dr. Siegel was in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the University of Florida. Received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1975. Major interest is stress reactivity and coping processes in children and adolescents.Clinical psychology intern at the Dallas V.A. Medical Center and doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Major interest is adolescent psychopathology and self-esteem.