title: Short-term stability of depressive symptoms and suicide attempts in Swedish adolescents.
abstract: The prevalence of depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and their relationship to perceived health problems and social relations were examined in a sample of 605 Swedish adolescents aged 13-18 years. Short-term stability of depressive symptoms and the turnover rate from a nondepressed to a depressed state were examined for subsamples of 36 depressed and 71 nondepressed subjects, respectively, who were retested after 4 to 6 weeks. Using Beck's criteria for clinical depression, 9% of the adolescents experienced moderate to severe depressive symptom levels. However, a more conservative estimate, 4%, was obtained when DSM-III criteria for major depressive disorder were applied. Approximately 3% of the adolescents had pronounced suicidal ideation and had made at least one previous suicide attempt. There was a tendency for boys to show more stable depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation than girls. Furthermore, a set of 5 psychosocial variables concerning the students' satisfaction with their school and leisure time, conflictual level at home and number of close friends predicted 31% of the variance of the subjects' total depressive symptom scores. Although a 32% decrease of depressive symptoms was noted for the depressed subsample of adolescents, 44% of these subjects continued to experience moderate to severe depression at follow-up.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Youth Psychiatry, Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Larsson
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Melin
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Breitholtz
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Andersson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology