Citation

Laser J, Luster T, Oshio T. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 2007; 77(4): 523-533.

Affiliation

Graduate School of Social Work, Denver University, Craig Hall, 2148 S. High Street, Denver, CO 80208, USA. jhaddow@du.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Orthopsychiatric Association, Publisher Wiley Blackwell)

DOI

10.1037/0002-9432.77.4.523

PMID

18194032

Abstract

Symptoms of depression include feelings of sadness, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and self-dislike. Adolescent depression is viewed as a problem in Japan, but there is little research on the correlates of depression in Japanese youth. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression in Japanese youth and to examine correlates of depression using a risk and promotive factor framework. This study examined the symptoms of depression among 802 Japanese youth attending postsecondary schools in the Sapporo area. Separate analyses were conducted for males and females to determine whether the importance of risk and promotive factors varied by gender. The results showed that many factors that had been linked to depressive symptoms in Western samples were predictive of depressive symptoms in Japanese youth. The risk and promotive factors accounted for 50% and 59% of the variance in depressive symptoms for the female and male subsamples, respectively.

Language: en