COMORBIDITY OF MAJOR DEPRESSION AND CONDUCT DISORDER

The association of depression and conduct disorder is common and often perplexing in child psychiatry. Using a systematic retrospective char t review, various symptom, demographic and family history variables we re compared between depression with comorbid conduct disorder and depr ession alone. Variables which differed between groups were entered int o a stepwise discriminative function analysis. The four variables whic h discriminated between groups were anxiety, witness to family violenc e, illegal behavior, and impulsive behavior. The strongest discriminat ing variable, anxiety, was associated with depression without comorbid conduct disorder. These results emphasize the heterogeneity of childh ood depression and potential importance of anxiety.