Factors influencing mother-child reports of depressive symptoms and agreement among clinically referred depressed youngsters in Hungary.
BACKGROUND
Psychiatric assessments of children typically involve two informants, the child and the parent. Understanding discordance in their reports has been of interest to clinicians and researchers. We examine differences between mothers' and children's report of children's depressive symptom severity, and factors that may influence their reports and level of agreement. We hypothesized that agreement between mother and child would improve if (1) the mother is depressed, due to improved recall of mood congruent symptoms, (2) the child is older, due to better social-cognitive and communication skills, and (3) the child is a female.


METHODS
Subjects were 354 children (158 girls; mean age 11.69 years, SD: 2.05 years) with Major Depressive Disorder. Depressive symptoms were evaluated by a semi-structured interview separately with the mother and the child. Agreement on symptom severity was based on concordance of the presence and extent of symptoms.


RESULTS
Maternal reports were significantly higher than their son's but not daughters'. Girls, particularly with increasing age, reported higher levels of symptoms; however mothers' reports were not affected by child sex or age. Maternal depression predicted more severe symptom reports for both children and mothers. Agreement between the mother and the child increased as children got older.


CONCLUSIONS
The same clinician interviewed the mother and the child, which might inflate rates of agreement. However, this method mirrors clinical evaluation.


CONCLUSIONS
During a clinical interview one must consider the age and sex of the child and the depressive state of the mother in assimilating information about the child.
Kiss
Eniko
E
University of Szeged, Department of Child Psychiatry, Semmelweis u. 6, Szeged, Csongrad, 6725, Hungary. kiss@gyip.szote.u-szeged.hu
Gentzler
Amy M
AM
George
Charles
C
Kapornai
Krisztina
K
Tamás
Zsuzsanna
Z
Kovacs
Maria
M
Vetró
Agnes
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D015588:Observer Variation; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires