Cognitive vulnerability in remitted depressed children and adolescents

The cognitive model by Beck predicts that formerly depressed individuals remain vulnerable for future depressive episodes due to the existence of stable negative schemas. Activation of those schemas may explain high relapse rates in depression. The present study investigated cognitive vulnerability in remitted depressed children and adolescents. A sample of 44 in-patient youngsters was assigned to three groups after completing the CDI at two different times: a never depressed group, a currently depressed group and a remitted depressed group. All participants received a mood induction before they were given a self-referent encoding task. The results indicated that the currently and the remitted depressed groups rated more negative words as self-descriptive than the never depressed group. On the recall task, the never depressed group showed positive information processing compared to the currently depressed and the remitted depressed groups. The currently depressed group also showed a negative recall bias compared to the never depressed group. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.