Depression in Pre-Pubertal,Children *

Abstract

Pre-pubertal depression has attracted a great deal of interest recently. The literature is reviewed with a particular focus on the better designed studies. While isolated symptoms of depression are relatively common, definite depressive disorder is much less prevalent. The majority of studies have focused on the most severely depressed subgroup of children. While effective treatment regimes are being developed for this small group of children, there is no evidence that such regimes should be applied to every depressed child. Major gaps exist in our knowledge of the range of depressive symptomatology in pre-pubertal children, the relationship of developmental factors to depressive symptoms, the reliability and validity of existing diagnostic tools, and the effectiveness of traditional child psychiatric treatment modalities for depression.