OBJECTIVE: To make the case that developmental distress needs to be assessed when evaluating adolescent depression.
METHODS: Reviews of relevant papers relating to adolescent depression.
RESULTS: Adolescent depression is a common and costly health condition, confounded by a lack of consensus among health professionals regarding evidence-based approaches regarding treatments. Little attention has been paid to the contribution of developmental distress.
CONCLUSION: The current adult-like model of adolescent depression fails to advance the understanding of adolescent depression. A systematic evidence-based approach to identifying developmental self-perception distress in depressed adolescents could provide important advances in treatment to improve short-term and longer-term mental health outcomes. This paper proposes the creation of a psychometric tool to systematically measure developmental self-perception distress in adolescents with depression.