Self-image and depressive symptoms among adolescents in a non-clinical sample

The connection between self-image and depressive symptoms in non-clinical adolescent populations has not been well documented in large samples of teenagers. Our purpose was to investigate the correlation between self-image and depressive symptoms. To assess the adolescent's self-concept, we use...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nordic journal of psychiatry 2003-10, Vol.57 (6), p.447-451
Main Authors: Erkolahti, Ritva, Ilonen, Tuula, Saarijärvi, Simo, Terho, Pirjo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
CDI
Cross-Sectional Studies
Depression
Depression - diagnosis
Depression - epidemiology
Depression - psychology
Female
Finland
Humans
Male
OSIQ
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Psychometrics - statistics & numerical data
Self Concept
Self-image
Sex Factors
Statistics as Topic
Urban Population
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The connection between self-image and depressive symptoms in non-clinical adolescent populations has not been well documented in large samples of teenagers. Our purpose was to investigate the correlation between self-image and depressive symptoms. To assess the adolescent's self-concept, we used the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ), and to study their depressive symptoms, we chose the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). The sample consisted of 1054 eighth-grade students (465 boys, 589 girls) from normal comprehensive schools in one town with 200 000 inhabitants. The mean age of both gender groups was 14.5 years and they came from all social classes. The results showed a highly significant correlation between OSIQ scale scores and CDI scores. The more problems the adolescents had with their self-image, the greater the number of depressive symptoms. The correlation between the CDI total score and OSIQ scales scores was higher for girls than for boys except for the Superior Adjustment scale. The difference between sexes in the strengths of the correlations was highly significant (P
ISSN:0803-9488
1502-4725
DOI:10.1080/08039480310003461