Child, mother, and father evaluations of depression in psychiatric inpatient children.

The agreement among children and their parents in evaluating the children's depression was examined in 48 families. Newly admitted inpatient children (ages 6-13) and their mothers and fathers independently completed self-report and interview measures to assess severity and duration of the children's depression. The results indicated that different measures of depression completed by the same rater (child, mother, or father) were highly intercorrelated. Yet there was little or no relationship between child-mother and child-father ratings of the children's depression for the same or related measures of depression. Children independently diagnosed (DSM III) as depressed rated themselves and were rated by their parents as more depressed than nondepressed children. Even so, children consistently rated themselves as less depressed across the measures than did their parents. Parent ratings of the children's depression and the correspondence of child-parent ratings varied as a function of several child and family variables, including child IQ, gender, race, and family welfare status.