A Study on Depression in Bangladeshi Children as a Function of Gender, Family Structure and Age

Abstract

This study investigated children's depression in the context of Bangladesh. Three independent variables used in this study were gender, family structure and age. Gender included boys and girls. Family structure included joint family and nuclear family. A total of 480 respondents were collected from nuclear and joint family. They were equally divided into boys and girls. Then they were equally subdivided into three age groups such as I 0-years age group, 13-years age group and 16-years age group. Children's depression rating scale was used for data collection. The major objective was to conduct an empirical investigation for the explanation of childhood depression with reference to gender, family structure and age. The hypothesis formulated for this study were (i)girl would express significantly more symptoms of depression disorders as compared to boys, (ii) children belonging to nuclear family would express significantly more depressive symptoms of depressive disorders as compared to the children belonging to joint family and (iii)children with 16-years of age would express significantly more depressive symptoms as compared to the children of 13-years of age and 10-years of age respectively. Several theories of depression were described for providing a basis of this investigations. These are: (1) Learned Helpness Model, (2) Defective Social Skills Model, (3) Depression as a Developmental Process, (4) Social Class Vulnerability Theory of Depression, (5) Cognitive Theory of Depression, (6) Self-control Model of Depression. A short review of relevant literature was given. The study used a factorial design involving two levels of gender (boy/girl), two levels of family structure (nuclear/joint) and three levels of age ( 1 0-years/13-years/l 6-years). The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for the competation of data. The results showed that regardless of family structure and age, mam effect of gender was statistically significant. Again, it was found that regardless of gender and family structure the main effect of age was statistically significant. However, the main effect of family structure was not significant. Two way interaction effects between gender and family structure. Moreover, a three-way interaction involving gender, family structure and age was statistically significant. It was found that girls reported higher depression than boys. In case of age, it was found that 16-years old respondents reported highest depressive depression followed by 13-years old respondents and least by 10-years old respondents. In case of joint and nuclear family, it was found that girls reported higher depression than boys but both boys and girls of joint family reported more depression than the boys and girls of nuclear family. These findings showed that family structure and gender are positively related for producing depression in our society. Similarly, age was found to play a major role in the development of depression. It was found that depression in boys and girls increases with the increase in age.