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Teenage depression can affect parents' marital satisfaction, reveals new study from Northwestern Medicine. Parents often seek mental health treatment for a child with depression, but treatment should not stop with the depressed teenager, suggests the study
The study found that while depressed adolescents participated in active treatment, marriages and parent-child conflict remained stable. After the teenage treatment was over, the marital relations of the parents slightly deteriorated, according to the study.
Families could put their problems on the back burner while their teenager gets help. Once treatment is over, they are forced to deal with problems in their marriage or family that may have been simmered while their depressed teenager was being treated. "
First Author, Kelsey Howard, PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
To remedy this, Howard and his co-authors recommend that parents of depressed teens also make a record of their marital relationship.
"Families are interactive and fragile ecosystems, and a change in mood in the adolescent can undoubtedly alter the balance of the family – in a negative or positive way," said Mr. Howard .
While depression in adolescents is well known to be a stressor for parents and families, it is one of the few studies to examine the impact of adolescent depression on family relationships and in turn, the impact of family relationships on depression in adolescents.
The study was published in Journal of Abnormal Infant Psychology.
The study found that parents of adolescents with higher depressive symptoms at the end of their treatment experienced more problems with their parents and conflicts with their parents during subsequent visits. Conversely, parents whose children had fewer depressive symptoms at the end of treatment found an improvement in later conflicts between parents and children.
This study is important in that very little research has examined the effects of adolescent treatment, with drugs or psychotherapy, on family relationships. The results in this area have been inconsistent and the effects may be subtle.
The message to remember – that depression among teens can affect families and that parents of depressed teens may need support – makes perfect sense. This is something we should all keep in mind. "
Mark A. Reinecke, Head of Psychology, Feinberg Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
This was a secondary badysis of data from 322 clinically depressed youth who participated in the 2007 Depressive Treatment Study, a flagship study on the treatment of depression in adolescents. In this study, adolescent depression was measured during the treatment period, which lasted 36 weeks, and for one year thereafter.
Source:
Northwestern University
Journal reference:
Howard, K.R. et al. (2019) Conjugal and Parent-Child Relationships in the Treatment of Depression in Adolescents: Child-induced and Bi-Directional Effects. Journal of Abnormal Infant Psychology. doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00566-x.
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