Child and Adolescent Depression in the Family

There are numerous individual, familial, and environmental factors that impact the onset of depressive disorders in youth. This article presents an overview of these factors and describes our own research evaluating a possible model of how disturbances in family functioning could lead to the development of depression in youth. Given that families are often implicated in the development and maintenance of depressive disorders in youth, it has been argued that maximally effective treatments for youth should include families. Thus, a review of empirically evaluated treatments that involve parental/familial participation for youth with depression is presented. These treatments vary widely in number of meetings, format, and content. Finally, it is proposed that the greatest benefit to including a parent or family component is improving the maintenance of treatment effects. To support this hypothesis, data from one of our own investigations is presented.