Decision Making Correlates of Depressive Symptoms among African-American Adolescents: Implications for Prevention Approaches

Abstract

Depression is the most common disorder of all mental illnesses. According to Healthy People 2010, one in five children and adolescents between the ages of 9 and 17 years has a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Adolescent depression is associated with impairment of functioning particularly in the domains of decision making and self-efficacy. The present investigation examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and decision making among a nonreferred, nonclinical community sample of 276 low-income African-American adolescents. The students ranged in age from 12 to 17 years. The Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) was used to assess depressive symptomatology among participants. The Flinders Adolescent Decision Making Questionnaire was used for assessing participants' decision making and decision coping patterns. The instrument was group-administered in classroom settings by a health educator and a clinical psychology graduate student. Findings indicated a significant correlation between adolescents' self-reported depressive symptomatology, as represented by their CDI scores, and inadequacy toward making decisions. Perhaps increasing competence in decision making may have beneficial effects on overall mood and depressive symptoms among at-risk adolescent populations.