Background: A better understanding of relationships between adolescent depression and family functioning may help in devising ways to prevent development of depression and design effective therapeutic interventions.
Aims: This study explored the relationship of parental emotional attitudes, (perceived criticism and expressed emotion) to adolescent self-evaluation and depression.
Methods: A sample of 28 clinic-referred adolescents and their mothers participated. The Five Minute Speech Sample was used to measure parental expressed emotion, and the adolescents completed the Children's Depression Inventory, Self-Perception Profile for Children global self-worth scale, a self-criticism scale and a perceived parental criticism scale.
Results: There was partial support for a model of adolescent negative self-evaluation as a mediator in the relationship between parental emotional attitudes and adolescent depressive symptoms. The data also supported an alternative hypothesis whereby adolescent depressive symptoms are related to negative self-evaluation.
Conclusions: The overall pattern of results emphasizes the significance of adolescents' perceptions of parental criticism, rather than actual levels, in understanding the relationship between parental emotional attitudes and adolescent depressive symptoms.