remember the titans
In its mild, depression it is probably most common psychological disturbance among adolescents. Although depression is typically associated with feeling of sadness, there are other symptoms that are important signs of the disturbance, and sadness alone, without any other symptoms, may not indicate depression in the clinical sense of the term. Depression has emotional symptoms, including dejection, decreased enjoyment of pleasurable activities, and low self esteem. It also has cognitive symptoms, cuch as pessimism and hopelessness. Depression has motivational symptoms, as well, including apathy and boredom. Finally depression usually has physical symptoms, such as loss of appetite, difficulties sleeping, and loss of energy. Some individuals report a pattern of depressive symptoms that includes a wider range of symptoms than saddens alone. At any one point in time, about 5 % of adolescents have the symptoms of a depressive syndrome, and approximately 3 % meet the diagnostic criteria for clinical depression (Compas et al., 1993; Lewinsohn, Hops, Roberts, Seeley, & Andrews, 1993). Depressed mood, depressive syndrome, and depressive disorder all become more common over the adolescent period, in part because of the increasing prevalence of stressful events during the adolescent years (Larson & Ham, 1993) and in part because the cognitive changes of adolescence permit the sort of introspection and rumination that often accompanies depression (Avenevoli & Steinberg, in press; Chen, Mechanic, & Hansell, 1998). Although most adolescent are able to cope with the changes of period, some are not. There is a dramatic increase in the prevalence of depressive feelings around the time of puberty; depression is half as common during childhood as it during adolescence (Avenevoli & Steinberg, in press). Interestingly, whereas depressive feelings are more common among boys than girls prior to adolescence depressive disorder is much more common among females than males after puberty (see the accompanying box). This sex difference in the prevalence of depressive disorder persists throughout most of adulthood, although the size of the sex difference in depression depends on how it is measured and whether the sample is random sample from the community (in which sex differences in depressed mood tend to be very small) or is composed of people referred for therapy (where sex differences in depression are quite large) (Compas et al., 1993; Compas et al., 1997). Additionally, some studies indicate that there have been historical increases in the prevalence of depression, especially among adolescents, with the rate of depression increasing in each generation (Lewinsohn, Rohde, Seeley, & Fischer, 1993). Several recent studies have indicted that there may be ethnic differences in the prevalence of depression during adolescence, with significantly more Mexican American teenagers reporting depressive symptoms than their white, African American, or Asian American especially within samples of girls (Roberts, Roberts, & Chen, 1997; Siegel, Aneshensel, Taub, Cantwell, & Driscoll, 1998).