The relationship between parental observation of child depressive behavior and child self reported depressive symptoms in bereaved children

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between bereaved child self reports and parental reports of child depressive symptoms among a group of bereaved children. Data was collected from data files of Camp Rainbow, a camp for bereaved children . Data included parent rated shortened Achenbach’sChildhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL), child rated Children’s DepressionInventory (CDI), age of the child, gender of the child, nature of the death, time since the death, and relationship to the deceased. A Pearson product moment correlation coefficient compared parent and child scores. Partial correlations were calculated between CBCL, CDI scores and the variables of interest (age, gender,nature of the death, time since death and relationship to the deceased) to determine how these variables affected the correlation.Post hoc analyses were conducted to consider questions that arose from the data. A chi-square statistic was used to compare sample values and the expected values for both the CBCL and CDI scores. An agreement variable classifying parent and child scores based on the test cut off points was created for analysis.Mann-Whitney U tests and chi-square tests were used to compare the other five variables to the agreement between parent and child scores. Further questions examined the sets with CBCL scores above the cut off point and related to the variables of interest.The study found that parents significantly rated their child’s depression symptoms higher than the children rated their own depressive symptoms. A number of implications for Camp Rainbow and future research were identified in the study.