Family childhood experiences reports in depressed patients: comparison between 2 time points

Abstract

Research has shown some discrepancies in the reports of experiences from childhood when an individual is depressed, because a depressed mood may have biasing effects on autobiographical memory. The present study sought to clarify this issue by examining whether there is temporal stability in the report of childhood experiences in depressed subjects, or rather, if these experiences are influenced by the mood at the time of report. The study therefore carries implications for the credibility of childhood reports of depressed adults, for the validity of the questionnaire used – Family Background Questionnaire (FBQ), adapted from Melchert (1991) – and for the conclusions it might yield. We hypothesized that the report of the same childhood family experiences across the year would not be influenced by the mood disorder. To test this prediction, we solicited reports of family experiences in 25 depressed subjects (76% women and 24% men) across the course of one year. The diagnosis of Major Depressive Episode at the outset of the study was confirmed in all subjects with the use of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to quantify level of depressive mood (M=19.80, SD=10.68). The report of childhood and family experiences was collected with the FBQ (Melchert, 1991; Melchert & Sayger, 1998), which consists of 124 items comprising 14 subscales. As hypothesized, results demonstrated that the reporting of childhood experiences in dthe family after approximately 1 year was not influenced by mood state of depression, which reinforces the reliability of childhood reports and the adequate reliability of the FBQ. However, there were significant differences between the first and second moment in the mood of the subjects (BDI), with a significant mood improvement after one year. These results are consistent with those of other authors which confirms that the use of questionnaires with more objective and specific items reduce the risk of biased responses on self-reporting childhood experiences.