Present study on the characteristics of depression in children and adolescents

Objective: To learn the present status of domestic and foreign researches on depression in children and adolescents in the latest 6 years, and explore the development in research about epidemiology, influential factors as well as the interventional treatment of depression. Data Sources: A computer-based search of articles about the depression in children and adolescents published from January 2000 to March 2006 were searched in EBCOhost Research Database with the key words of "depression on children and adolescents", and the language was limited to English. Meanwhile, relevant Chinese articles about depression in children and adolescents were searched in CNKI Database with the key words of "depression, children, adolescents". literatures on emotional disorders were also manually retrieved. Study Selection: Researches and reviews with the words of depression in children or adolescents involved in the subject were selected. The inclusion criteria were: 1 The subjects studied merely suffered from emotional disorders. 2 Literatures mainly of surveys or research reports. Repetitive studies were excluded. Data Extraction: A total of 391 articles and 7 monographs about depression in children and adolescents were collected, among which 34 articles and 7 monographs were in accordance with the criteria. Repetitive studies were excluded. Data Synthesis: Depression, with a high prevalence in children and adolescents, is influenced by genes, personality, attributive styles, parents, social supports, relationship with peers and so on. Intervention and treatment on depression in children and adolescents abroad include medication, psychological therapy and comprehensive therapy. The curative effect of comprehensive therapy is better than that of single therapy. Conclusion: Some progress has been achieved in research on depression in children and adolescents, while there is discordance in the results, and the researches mainly focus on the adolescents, and the researches on interventional treatment is less.