Citation

Denda K, Kako Y, Kitagawa N, Koyama T. Int. J. Psychiatry Med. 2006; 36(2): 231-241.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. kdenda@med.hokudai.ac.jp

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

17154151

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents in the general Japanese population using a depression self-rating scale and determine whether this prevalence varies according to age, gender, or region. METHOD: The Birleson Depression Self-Rating Scale for children (DSRS) was used to examine the extent to which depressive tendencies were present among 2,453 elementary and middle-school children (6 to 15 years old) in two cities in Japan. RESULTS: The mean DSRS score was high at 8.75 +/- 5.66. A significant increase in score was observed with increasing age. There were no significant differences between regions. Using a DSRS cutoff score of 15 points as a risk of depression, the scores of 14.9% of the subjects exceeded the cutoff. CONCLUSIONS: As determined using the DSRS, a high proportion of Japanese children and adolescents have depressive tendencies.

Language: en