Dysfunctionality of Family as a Predictive Factor for Depression among Girls

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between family structure and depression in female adolescents. For this purpose, 167 female guidance school students with the average age of 13/5 were chosen from the sixth educational district in Tehran through the random sampling method and were administered the Child Depression Inventory and the Family Assessment Device. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, etc.) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis). The results showed that 67/1 of the sample group had no depression, 29/3 were on the threshold of having depression and 3/6 were depressed. The results also showed a significant negative correlation between depression and the total family structure score (α < 0/05, r = - 0/159) and the subscales of family roles (α < 0/01, r = -0/438) and emotional expression (α < 0/01, r = -0/280). Also, there was a significant positive correlation between depression and problem solving (α < 0/01, r = 0/417). Given the coefficients for the influence of family roles (-0/295) and problem solving (0/242), the regression analysis showed that 23% of the variance of depression in the sample could be explained by these two subscales. The implications are discussed at the end.