Assessment of depression in school-age children: A cross-cultural comparison of Mexican American and Caucasian students.

Abstract

The study of depression in children and adolescents has flourished in the past 20 years. However, there is a paucity of research investigating the assessment of depression in minority school-age children. The present study compared depression scores between Mexican-American and Caucasian fourth, fifth and sixth graders. Ninety-one children enrolled in two Tucson school districts were administered an acculturation scale and two depression self-report instruments: the adapted Marin Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanics, the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Reynolds Child Depression Scale (RCDS). Students with scores at or above the cut-off on the self-report scales were interviewed with the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-Revised, major depression and dysthymia sections. Variables of interest for this study were: acculturation, ethnicity, gender, age and grade. The relationship between level of acculturation and depression and gender and depression were also investigated. Results indicated that there was an acculturation by gender by age interaction on the CDI. In addition, there was a gender by age interaction effect on the CDI. When looking at the high scores (upper third) on the CDI, there was a significant ethnicity effect indicating that Caucasian students scored significantly higher than did Mexican-American students. There were no significant differences for gender on the CDI and RCDS. The results also revealed a significant age effect on CDI high scores, indicating that children who were eleven years-of-age or older scored significantly higher than did students who were younger than eleven years-of-age. Fifth graders were also found to score significantly higher on the CDI than fourth or sixth graders. On the RCDS, sixth graders were found to score significantly higher than fourth or fifth graders. For Mexican-American students, there was a significant negative correlation between acculturation and CDI scores and acculturation and RCDS scores. There was a significant positive correlation between acculturation and CDI high scores for all the students. The results of the present study were compared to existing literature on childhood depression. Limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research were addressed.