Sex Differences in Symptoms of Depression among American Children and Adolescents

Abstract

The Arabic Children's Depression Inventory in its English version was administered to a sample of 535 U.S. school students (11 to 18 years old). By sex, differences on total score and on 19 of 27 items (70.4%) were not statistically significant. Nevertheless, differences were significant for 8 (29.6%) items on which girls had higher mean scores. Half of the items were positive indicators of depression (I am sad, I feel lonely, I feel miserable, and I hate myself), while the other half were negative (I feel happy, Life is rosy, A lot of people like me, and I am optimistic).