Somatic and Depressive Symptoms Among Children From Latin America and the English-Speaking Caribbean.

Background: The extent to which depression is associated with somatic complaints in children from the English-speaking Caribbean and Latin America is not well established.

Objective: We sought to explore the association between depressive and somatic symptoms among children from the English-speaking Caribbean and Latin America, while accounting for age, sex, socioeconomic status, cultural background, and anxiety score.

Method: 1541 elementary school children, ages 9-12 years, from the English-speaking Caribbean and Latin America completed the Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ARDS), the Numeric 0-10 Anxiety Self-Report Scale and the Children's Somatic Symptom Inventory-24 (CSSI-24).

A psycho-social analysis of depression, anxiety and student engagement: Effects of parenting practices.

The extent to which students' level of depressive and anxiety symptoms and student engagement were predicted by parental emotional support, monitoring and harsh parenting was investigated using a series of multiple regression analyses. Grade six students from public primary schools ( = 293; 49% females, 51% males; mean age = 10 years) in Barbados completed the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale, a Parenting Questionnaire and an adapted Student Engagement scale. Students' level of depressive symptoms were predicted by parental emotional support and harsh parenting, but not by parental monitoring.

Validation of the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale in a Caribbean student sample.

Background: Research on depression among Caribbean children has been limited by a lack of valid and reliable measures. We addressed this problem by exploring the internal consistency reliability and the concurrent and discriminant validity of the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (KADS) among a wide cross-section of the student population attending elementary schools in Jamaica and Barbados.

Methods: Students enrolled in grade 6 in a cross-section of schools in Jamaica and Barbados were invited to participate in the study.