Assessment of depressive symptoms in Japanese school children and adolescents using the Birleson Depression Self-Rating Scale.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents in the general Japanese population using a depression self-rating scale and determine whether this prevalence varies according to age, gender, or region.


METHODS
The Birleson Depression Self-Rating Scale for children (DSRS) was used to examine the extent to which depressive tendencies were present among 2,453 elementary and middle-school children (6 to 15 years old) in two cities in Japan.


RESULTS
The mean DSRS score was high at 8.75 +/- 5.66. A significant increase in score was observed with increasing age. There were no significant differences between regions. Using a DSRS cutoff score of 15 points as a risk of depression, the scores of 14.9% of the subjects exceeded the cutoff.


CONCLUSIONS
As determined using the DSRS, a high proportion of Japanese children and adolescents have depressive tendencies.
Denda
Kenzo
K
Department of Psychiatry, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. kdenda@med.hokudai.ac.jp
Kako
Yuki
Y
Kitagawa
Nobuki
N
Koyama
Tsukasa
T
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*