%0 Thesis
%9 Doctoral
%A Monck, Elizabeth Mary
%B Institute of Child Health
%D 1996
%F discovery:10097945
%I UCL (University College London)
%P 564
%T Family and social factors associated with depression and anxiety disorders in late adolescent girls
%U https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10097945/
%X The study sought to establish the prevalence of self-reported mood disturbance and  depressive and anxiety disorders in a community sample of girls aged 15-20 years.  It was hypothesised that the onset of depressive/anxiety disorders would be preceded  by stressful life events, and be more frequent in girls without strong maternal support.  Subsidiary hypotheses concerned depression and anxiety disorders being more  frequently found in families with poor personal relations, and in older age-groups.  Drawn from the age-sex registers of eight General Practices in North and East  London, a sample of 645 girls were approached for a screening interview. Of these,  529 (82.6%) accepted and were seen with their key relatives (92% mothers). Both  key relatives and the girls completed self-report questionnaires on depressive and  anxious mood, and also completed third-person versions on one another. At the same  time they completed self-report and third person questionnaires on attitudes to eating  and exercise; this work is not reported in this thesis.  A sub-sample of girls with high self-report questionnaire scores and matched low  scorers all of whom were living with their mothers was given a second interview: 153  of 176 eligible girls agreed. Girls and mothers were interviewed separately, but at the  same time. The girl was given a psychiatric interview to establish ’caseness’ and  diagnosis, and mothers and daughters were asked about stressful life events affecting  the girl and personal relationships in the family.  Using data from the screening interview, self-reported mood disturbance was found  in 20.8% of the girls. The second interview established that there were 38 cases of  psychiatric disorder, of which 34 were depressive and/or anxiety disorders. The four  cases of conduct disorder were dropped from the analysis and the sample was reconstituted  in order to obtain representative numbers of girls with high scores on the  self-report eating disorders questionnaire. This left a sample of 139 girls with  depressive and anxiety disorders and their controls, among whom it was found that  depressive disorder was significantly associated with previous stressful life even ts.  After statistical adjustment for an error in data collection, the hypothesised  moderating effect of maternal support following stressful events was not confirmed  for the depressed girls. Maternal depressed mood and the mother’s single parent  status or poor quality marriage were independently related to depressive disorders in  the daughters, and a confiding relationship with her mother did not moderate these  significant effects. The number of girls with anxiety disorders proved to be small,  and the hypotheses requiring multivariate analyses could not be tested.
%Z Thesis digitised by ProQuest.