Abstract
Migrant children reached 35.81 million in China and were vulnerable to serious emotional problems including depression. The present study aimed to identify the family and individual risk and protective factors for depression in an at-risk sample of Chinese migrant children. Participants were 368 children (9.47 ± 1.46 years old, 73.4% boys) who had at least one symptom of Oppositional Defiant Disorder symptoms (ODD) and their parents in Mainland China. Risk and protective factors within both family (i.e., family maltreatment and family functioning) and individual (i.e., automatic thoughts and resilience) perspectives. Family maltreatment and negative automatic thoughts served as risk factors in relation to children's depression. Further, automatic thoughts mediated the relationship between family maltreatment and children's depression. Family functioning (cohesion, but bot adaptability) and individual resilience could buffer the effects of risk factors in the Structure Emotion Model such that both cohesion and resilience moderated the relationship between family maltreatment and children's automatic thoughts only. Our findings highlighted the urgent need to decrease risk factors and increase protective factors of both family and child individual characteristics in prevention and intervention depression among migrant children with ODD symptoms in China.
Highlights
Migration and immigration is certainly becoming one of the great issues all around the world (Dogra et al, 2011; Crosnoe and Fuligni, 2012)
This study aimed to examine how risk and protective factors in both the family and the child are jointly and interactively associated with depressive symptoms in migrant children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder symptoms (ODD) symptoms in China
All of the bivariate correlations were statistically significant except family functioning with children’s automatic thoughts and depression
Summary
Migration and immigration is certainly becoming one of the great issues all around the world (Dogra et al, 2011; Crosnoe and Fuligni, 2012). With the rapid development of economy and urbanization in China, as of 2014, there were over 35.81 million children (or 12.84% of all children) aged from 0 to 17 who migrated from rural to urban areas in China. In urbanized areas such as Beijing, it was estimated that as high as 36.28% of children were migrants (NWCCW et al, 2014). Targeting on children with ODD symptoms could be meaningful to understand those migrant children with emotional and behavioral problems
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