Depression and coping in portuguese children and adolescents

Abstract

The goal of this study was to analyze the relation of depression and coping strategies between themselves and according to age and gender. The sample was constituted of 916 children and adolescents, of both genders, with an average age of 14.4 years (DP=2.62), enlisted randomly in public schools from different regions of Portugal (Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Beira Interior, Estremadura and Ribatejo and Region of Lisbon). In each chosen school two groups where drafted, each group belonging to a different school year, between 5o to 12o grades, correspondent in Portugal to a school passage between 10 and 18 years old. The used measures of evaluation were the Children's Depression Inventory - CDI (Kovacs, 1992) and the coping Responses Inventory - Youth Form - CRI-Y (Moos, 1993). The results suggest that the group of young adults (18-22 years) and girls presented higher levels of depression and use of coping strategies, comparatively to the groups of pre-adolescents (10-13 years), adolescents (14-17 years) and boys. A negative relation between depression and coping was observed, therefore when depressive symptoms increased, the use of coping strategies decreased. These results were confirmed when we observed differences between depression symptoms and coping, where the groups that had demonstrated less depression symptoms or an average level of symptoms presented higher values of coping strategies. In general, the study suggested that girls and older adolescents are more depressed and use less efficient coping strategies to deal with stressful events