Overgeneral autobiographical memory – the tendency to categorize memories rather than to remember specific events in response to a cue – which has long been pegged as a risk factor for depression in adults, also is a risk factor of depression in adolescents, a study of 277 adolescents has shown.
The study involved adolescents aged 10-18 years who were part of the Early Prediction of Adolescent Depression study – an ongoing longitudinal study of depression in children of parents with recurrent unipolar depression. Data on autobiographical memory in response to verbal cues of prior positive and negative experiences were collected at baseline and at intervals during the approximately 12-month follow-up. The data were analyzed to tease out the association of overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) with depression.
Clinical interviews at baseline categorized the subjects as no disorder, depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, and externalizing disorder, reported Adhip Rawal, Ph.D., and Frances Rice, Ph.D., of University College London (J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 2012;51:518-27).
OGM to "negative cues" was more likely among adolescents who were depressed at baseline than in those with no disorder, anxiety disorder, and externalizing disorder. In those who were not depressed at baseline, OGM was associated with the onset of depression disorder and symptoms at follow-up, but not with development of anxiety disorder or externalizing disorders. Adolescents who were depressed at baseline and at follow-up were no more likely to display OGM that those who were no longer depressed after 1-year, they said.
Age, IQ, and depressive symptoms were not correlated with OGM.
"The present results showed that increased overgenerality to negative cues predicted the occurrence of depressive disorder in adolescents free from depressive disorder at baseline, independent of age, IQ, and depressive symptoms," Dr. Rawal and Dr. Rice wrote.
When asked about the results, Filip Raes, Ph.D., said that seeing findings found in adults being replicated in adolescents "says something about the robustness of the phenomenon of OGM."
"What makes their findings important is that they found evidence for OGM’s predictive value for new onsets of clinical depressive episodes," Dr. Raes, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and a leading researcher in the area of OGM, said in the interview. "As rightly noted by the authors, OGM may constitute an important target for preventive interventions."
Limitations of the study included the absence of an examination of the influence of gender, the relatively short follow-up period, the possibility that episodes of depression were missed in the periods between assessments, and lack of a control for prior episodes of depression in the years before the study.
Dr. Rawal and Dr. Rice reported no potential conflicts of interest.