Open AccessYouth Depression Screening with Parent and Self-Reports: Assessing Current and Prospective Depression Risk
Author(s) -
Joseph R. Cohen,
Felix K. So,
Jami F. Young,
Benjamin L. Hankin,
Brenda Lee
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
child psychiatry and human development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1573-3327
pISSN - 0009-398X
DOI - 10.1007/s10578-019-00869-6
Subject(s) - psychology , depression (economics) , clinical psychology , mood , depressive symptoms , psychiatry , receiver operating characteristic , prospective cohort study , cognition , medicine , surgery , economics , macroeconomics
Few studies have examined the incremental validity of multi-informant depression screening approaches. In response, we examined how recommendations for using a multi-informant approach may vary for identifying concurrent or prospective depressive episodes. Participants included 663 youth (Age M = 11.83; Age SD = 2.40) and their caregiver who independently completed youth depression questionnaires, and clinical diagnostic interviews, every 6 months for 3 years. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses showed that youth-report best predicted concurrent episodes, and that both youth and parent-report were necessary to adequately forecast prospective episodes. More specifically, youth-reported negative mood symptoms and parent-reported anhedonic symptoms incrementally predicted future depressive episodes. Findings were invariant to youth's sex and age, and results from person and variable-centered analyses suggested that discrepancies between informants were not clinically meaningful. Implications for future research and evidence-based decision making for depression screening initiatives are discussed.