Risk and Prevention of Depression in Youth

描述(由申请者提供)：这是对美国国立卫生研究院独立科学家奖(K02)的请求，以提高公共部门的能力，以促进对儿童和青少年抑郁障碍发展的潜在过程的了解，并开发和测试旨在预防青年抑郁的干预措施。公共图书馆的研究计划已经从研究预测儿童和青少年抑郁的心理社会风险因素，到研究这些风险因素作为父母和儿童精神病理之间联系的中介的作用，再到测试针对早期研究中确定的几个风险因素的预防计划。该提案描述了三个研究项目，涉及五个不同但相关的研究。第一个项目包括两个独立的纵向研究，考察了儿童和青少年中的心理社会因素(如家庭功能障碍、社会反馈、压力)对消极认知和抑郁障碍的发展的影响。第二个项目由两个不同的调查组成，分别是关于治疗(认知-行为和/或药物治疗)导致的父母抑郁的减少是否与他们孩子的精神病理和功能的变化有关，以及这些变化是否由亲子关系的改善、负面认知和/或应激性生活事件的减少所调节。最后一个项目使用从前两个研究项目中学到的关于风险因素的知识，测试认知行为干预措施，以预防因父母在治疗抑郁症中而有情绪障碍风险的青少年，以及他们自己既有抑郁症疾病或当前亚综合征抑郁症状。 职业发展计划的目标是在两个领域扩大应聘者的技能：量化方法和预防科学。由于候选人的大部分研究是纵向的，学习最先进的统计方法(例如，潜在增长曲线、线性和非线性混合效应模型、生存分析、结构方程建模)将拓宽可以用现有数据和新数据解决的研究问题的种类。此外，她将更新和扩大她的预防干预知识，特别是认知-行为方法，目的是进一步开发和测试预防高危青少年抑郁的计划的有效性。这一K奖将允许候选人利用病因学的基本知识将候选研究与实践联系起来，以解决预防抑郁症这一严重公共卫生状况的发病和复发的实际问题，特别是在抑郁症的最高风险人群中。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a request for an NIH Independent Scientist Award (K02) to enhance the Pl's ability to contribute to the understanding of the processes underlying the development of depressive disorders in children and adolescents and to develop and test interventions aimed at preventing depression in youth. The Pl's research program has evolved from studying psychosocial risk factors that predict depression in children and adolescents, to examining the role of these risk factors as mediators of the link between parent and child psychopathology, to testing a prevention program that targets several of the risk factors identified in the earlier studies. This proposal describes three research programs involving five different but related studies. The first program includes two separate longitudinal studies that examine the contribution of varbus psychosocial factors (e.g., family dysfunction, social feedback, stress) to the development of negative cognitions and depressive disorders in children and adolescents. The second program is comprised of two different investigations of whether decreases in parents' depression as a result of treatment (cognitive-behavioral and/or pharmacotherapy) are associated with changes in their children's psychopathology and functioning, and whether these changes are mediated by improvements in parent-child relationships, negative cognitions, and/or decreases in stressful life events. The last project uses knowledge about risk factors learned from the first two research programs to test a cognitive-behavioral intervention for preventing depression in adolescents at risk for mood disorders due to their having a parent in treatment for depression, and themselves having either a past depressive ecandidatesode or current subsyndromal depressive symptoms. The goal of the career development plan is to expand the candidate's skills in two areas: quantitative methods and prevention science. Because most of the candidate's research is longitudinal, learning state-of-the-art statistical methods (e.g. latent growth curve, linear and non-linear mixed effects models, survival analysis, structural equations modeling) will broaden the kinds of research questions that can be addressed with both existing and new data. In addition, she will update and expand her knowledge of preventive interventions, particularly cognitive-behavioral approaches, with the aim of further developing and testing the efficacy of programs for preventing depression in high-risk adolescents. This K award will allow the candidate to bridge emcandidaterical research with practice by using basic knowledge about etiology to address the practical problem of preventing the onset and recurrence of the serious public health condition of depression, particularly among those at greatest risk for the disorder.