Depression in At-Risk Adolescents and Their Parents—Reply
- Judy Garber, PhD judy.garber@vanderbilt.eduDepartment of Psychology and Human DevelopmentVanderbilt UniversityNashville, Tennessee;
- Greg Clarke, PhDKaiser Permanente Center for Health ResearchPortland, Oregon;
- V. Robin Weersing, PhDChild and Adolescent Anxiety and Mood ProgramSan Diego State University and University of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
In Reply: Drs Weissman and Talati present converging evidence that treating parental depression may be important for children's adjustment and recommended that interventions should target currently depressed parents and their high-risk offspring. Several empirical findings support this perspective. First, offspring of depressed parents are at increased risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. Second, interventions aimed at treating currently depressed children1,2 and preventing depression in at-risk youth (in our study) have been found to be less effective when a parent is currently depressed. Third, treatment of depression in parents of children with current psychopathology resulted in lower levels of children's self-reported depressive symptoms.3 Fourth, a significant association has been found between remission in mothers' depression and decreases in their children's symptoms and disorders.4 Thus, it is fair to conclude that reducing depression in parents likely will yield more positive outcomes in their children.
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