COPING WITH MATERNAL DEPRESSED AFFECT AND DEPRESSION - ADOLESCENT CHILDREN OF DEPRESSED AND WELL MOTHERS

This study examined the strategies adolescents use to cope with their mothers' depressive symptoms and/or episodes. An open-ended semistruct ured interview and a closed-ended coping scale, the Maternal Affectivi ty Coping Scale derived from the Self-Report Coping Scale (D. L. Cause y and E. F. Dubow [1992] ''Development of a Self-Report Measure for El ementary School Children,'' Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 47-59), was administered to pairs of adolescent siblings (N = 179) from families (N = 94) in which the mother was either depressed or well. With a few important exceptions, the results reveal similar c oping styles in the offspring of depressed and well mothers. One diffe rence was that mothers' current psychological distress was weakly rela ted to young adolescents' coping patterns (e.g., problem solving, exte rnalizing). Also, adolescents' coping styles (e.g., provide support) w ere related to the type of depressive symptoms the mother exhibited (e .g., anger, irritability). Second, greater sibling differences were fo und for emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., distancing) in childr en of depressed mothers than in children of well mothers. Third, the r esults suggest that the sex of the adolescent may be important in atte mpting to understand individual differences in coping. Females were mo re likely than males to engage in interpersonally focused coping strat egies (e.g., provide support to their mother, seek support from others ). The feelings of responsibility for contributing to their mother's d epression that were more evident in females than males may offer some insight into gender differences and may also have implications for pla cing females at higher risk for internalizing disorders.