Risk factors of comorbidity between aggressive behaviors and depressive disorders in school-aged children

摘要

The goal of the current study was to clarify the relation between aggression and depression in school-aged children by examining the roles of five risk factors (economic status, parent depression, parent-child conflict, academic competence and peer rejection) that may explain the relation between aggression and depression. The study collected information from a sample of 368 families of sixth grade children aged 10-13 years (M = 11.3). These children were living in intact families in the rural Midwest and variables were measured using mother-, father-, and child self-report. The findings of this study supported a significant relation between aggression and depressive symptoms in children (r =.67) and the five risk factors were all significantly correlated with both aggression and depression in the expected direction. The combined effect of the five risk factors explained 60% of the shared variance between aggression and depressive symptoms with parent depression, peer rejection, and parent-child conflict uniquely contributing to the covariation between aggression and depression. A process model linking the five risk factors to aggression and depression was proposed and results indicated a marginal fit between the hypothesized interrelations in the process model and the data. Consequently, a modified process model resulted in a more reasonable fit with the data. Moderator effects were also examined within the process model.