Between Child Depression and Conduct Disorder

Social Status and the Co morbidity of Child Depression and Conduct Disorder

This title is referring to a study which examined the relation between child depression and conduct disorder as a function of peer social status (i.e., popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, average) in a sample of 1,464 no referred 4th graders.

Both child depression and conduct disorder were measured by self-report, peer nomination, and teacher ratings. Social status was assessed by peer nomination. A strong correlation (.73) was found between depression and conduct disorder, even after accounting for shared method variance by confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, the number of Ss who scored high on both depression and conduct disorder was greater than would be expected by chance alone. Multivariate tests revealed that rejected Ss scored higher than average Ss on measures of depression and conduct disorder. Controversial boys also scored higher on measures of conduct disorder. However, analyses also revealed that the association between depression and rejected social status might be due to a subgroup of depressed children who also manifested symptoms of conduct disorder.

Reference:
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Volume 58, Issue 6, December 1990, Pages 748-757
David A. Cole, Sarah Carpentieri