Daughter and mother report of individual symptoms on the Children's Depression Inventory

Purpose: To examine differences between early adolescent girls' and their mothers' perceptions of girls' depressive symptoms. Methods: 313 daughter-mother dyads completed the Children's Depression Inventory. Results: Low to modest agreement was found for most symptoms, although higher agreement was found for symptoms relating to school performance. The hypothesis that girls would report more ideational symptoms and mothers more behavioral symptoms of depression was tested; girls generally reported more ideational and behavioral symptoms when differences occurred. However, several specific ideational symptoms (feeling like crying; feeling sad; guilt; worrying) tended to be more frequently endorsed by girls and had particularly poor daughter-mother agreement. Examining third variables associated with daughter-mother agreement, girls scoring high on social desirability tended to have smaller daughter-minus-mother difference scores for ideational, but not for behavioral items; therefore, social desirability may be associated with girls underreporting ideational symptoms. Conclusion: Mothers appear to be reliable raters of symptoms related to school functioning; but may be less aware of certain covert depressive symptoms in their early adolescent daughters.