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Recent friendships in anxious and depressed school age children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

I. M. Goodyer ,
C. Wright  and
P. M. E. Altham
I. M. Goodyer*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge Clinical School, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge; Department of Psychiatric Social Work, Booth Hall Children's Hospital, Blackley, Manchester and Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge
C. Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge Clinical School, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge; Department of Psychiatric Social Work, Booth Hall Children's Hospital, Blackley, Manchester and Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge
P. M. E. Altham
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge Clinical School, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge; Department of Psychiatric Social Work, Booth Hall Children's Hospital, Blackley, Manchester and Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr I. M. Goodyer, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge Clinical School, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ
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Synopsis

A consecutive series of school age children (7 to 16 years) with emotional disorders (N = 100) were compared with a series of community controls (N = 100) matched for age, sex and social class for the quality of their friendships. A semi-structured interview was developed to measure the quality of friendship for this purpose. Significantly more (48%) children with emotional disorder were likely to be rated as experiencing moderate to poor friendships in the 12 months prior to the onset of symptoms than were controls (16%) in the 12 months prior to interview. Prepubertal children with moderate to poor friendship patterns were classified as either predominantly anxious or depressed. Postpubertal children with moderate to poor friendships patterns were, in contrast, predominantly anxious. These findings suggest that puberty denotes a point of change for the impact of friendship deficits on the psychopathology of emotional disorder. There were no sex differences in the clinical classification of children with moderate or poor friendship patterns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 165 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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