◦ th and 11 th grade high school students (54% girls) ◦ 63% Caucasian; 24% African-American; 13% Hispanic; remaining were Asian or “other” ◦ Mean age = (SD=.67); age range ◦ All participants attended a public high school in Delaware, Pennsylvania, or Maryland ◦ Most of the adolescents (56%) lived with both biological parents; 89% lived with their biological mother and 61% lived with their biological father Sample The Relationship between Gender and Adolescent Depression: The Mediating Role of Coping Christine McCauley Ohannessian, University of Delaware Ashley Malooly, University of Miami Conclusions *Supported by NIAAA K01AA Results Measures Adolescent Coping. Participants completed the 60-item COPE Inventory (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989) to assess coping strategies. The adolescents were asked to respond in relation to what they generally do and feel when experiencing stressful events. The response scale ranges from 1= don’t’ do this at all to 4 = do this a lot. The following scales were used in this study: Venting emotions (“I get upset and let my emotions out”), instrumental social support (“I try to get advice from someone about what to do”), active coping (“I concentrate my efforts on doing something about it”), denial (“I say to myself ‘this isn’t real’”), religious coping (“I put my trust in God”), humor (“I laugh about the situation”), emotional social support (“I discuss my feelings with someone”) and planning (“I make a plan of action”). The COPE has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of coping (Carver, Scheier &Weintraub, 1989; Phelps & Jarvis, 1994). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the COPE scales ranged from in our sample. Adolescent Depression. The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC; Weissman et al., 1980) was used to assess adolescent depressive symptomatology. The adolescents were asked to respond to the CES-DC items in relation to how they felt or acted during the past week. A representative item from this measures is “I felt sad.” The response scale ranges from 1 = not at all to 4 = a lot. The 20 CES-DC items were summed to create a total score. The CES-DC has been found to have good psychometric properties (Faulstich et al., 1986). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the CES-DC total score was.90 in our sample. During the spring of 2007 (Time 1), adolescents in participating high schools who had parental consent and also provided their own assent were given a self-report survey in school by trained research staff. The survey took approximately 40 minutes to complete. Upon completion of the survey, the adolescents were compensated with a movie pass. All of the participants were invited to participate again in the spring of 2008 (Time 2). Procedures The primary goal of this study was to systematically examine whether coping strategies mediate the relationship between gender and adolescent depression. Surveys were administered to th and 11 th grade high school students in the spring of 2007 and again in the spring of Results indicated that girls had higher levels of depressive symptomatology than boys. In addition, venting emotions, emotional support, and active coping were found to mediate the relationship between gender and depression. Girls were more likely to use all three of these coping strategies than were boys. Venting emotions, in turn, increased depressive symptomatology; whereas emotional social support and active coping decreased depressive symptomatology. ANOVAs were conducted to examine whether the study variables differed by gender. In addition, Pearson product- moment correlations were calculated to examine the bivariate associations between coping strategies and depressive symptomatology, by gender. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine whether coping mediates the relationship between gender and depression. The SEM analyses were conducted in four steps. Model 1 was a fully saturated model, including non-specified direct paths. Model 2 examined the specified model. Model 3 was a streamlined model, including only the paths that were significant in Model 2. Model 4 was identical to Model 3, with the exception that the disturbance terms of the endogenous variables were allowed to be correlated. Analyses Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Relationships Girls reported higher levels of coping for all of the strategies except for denial and humor (see Table 1). As shown in Table 2, denial and venting emotions were significantly associated with depression for both boys and girls. In addition, gender differences in the relationship between coping and depression were found for the following strategies: Active coping, planning, and religious coping. All three strategies were associated with modest reductions in depressive symptomatology for girls, but not for boys. Consistent with the literature, girls were found to have higher levels of depressive symptomatology than boys. Results from this study indicate that coping strategies may play a role in this gender difference. More specifically, the relationship between gender and adolescent depression was found to be significantly mediated by venting emotions, emotional support, and active coping. Girls were more likely to use these coping strategies in comparison to boys. In turn, venting emotions increased depressive symptomatology, whereas emotional social support and active coping decreased depressive symptomatology. Venting emotions was an especially strong mediator. These results suggest that prevention programs targeting depression should educate youth (especially girls) to avoid the use of venting emotions when coping with stress. In contrast, seeking emotional social support and active coping should be encouraged. Abstract Results SEM Results The initial saturated model (Model 1) did not fit the data well (X 2 (28) = , p =.00; NFI =.16; CFI =.16; RMSEA =.33). However, a significant direct path was observed between gender and depression (β =.10, p <.05). This path was retained in the subsequent model. The overall fit of Model 3 (Model 2 was not conducted because the direct path was significant) was not improved over Model 1 (X 2 (35) = , p =.00; NFI =.16; CFI =.15; RMSEA =.30). In contrast to the previous models, Model 4 fit the data quite well (X 2 (7) = 14.64, p =.04; NFI =.99; CFI = 1.00; RMSEA =.04). As shown in Figure 1, a significant direct path was found between gender and depression (β =.10, p<.05). Gender also significantly predicted venting emotions (β =.39, p<.001), instrumental social support (β =.30, p<.001), active coping (β =.08, p<.01), religious coping (β =.12, p<.01), and emotional social support (β =.39, p<.001). In turn, venting emotions, active coping, and emotional social support significantly predicted depression (βs =.23, p<.001; -.14, p<.01; and p<.05, respectively). Denial also significantly predicted depression (β =.23, p<.001). Sobel test results indicated that the relationship between gender and adolescent depression was significantly mediated by venting emotions (c.r. = 4.08, p<.001). This finding suggested that girls were more likely to use venting emotions than boys; in turn, venting emotions increased depressive symptomatology. The relationship between gender and depression also was significantly mediated by emotional social support (c.r. = -2.07, p<.05) and active coping (c.r. = -2.13, p<.05). These results indicated that girls were more likely to use emotional social support and active coping than boys; in turn, these coping strategies decreased depressive symptomatology. BoysGirls F-Ratio from ANOVA Significant Post-Hoc Differences Active Coping9.05(3.30)10.02(2.89)12.43***Boys < Girls Denial Coping6.14(2.87)6.42(2.96)n.s. Emotional Support Coping8.54(3.38)11.23(3.24)41.82***Boys < Girls Humor Coping9.02(3.39)8.69(3.60)n.s. Instrumental Support Coping9.09(3.37)11.20(3.09)30.56***Boys < Girls Planning Coping9.13(3.52)10.09(3.34)7.68**Boys < Girls Religious Coping7.67(3.68)9.17(4.18)9.45**Boys < Girls Venting Emotions Coping7.25(3.09)9.94(3.07)59.09***Boys < Girls Depression34.31(10.78)37.36(12.28)8.45**Boys < Girls * p <.05; ** p <.01; *** p <.001. Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations for Coping Strategies and Depression at Time 1 by Gender Table 2 Time 1Time 2 Coping StrategyBoysGirlsBoysGirls Active ** Denial.26***.25***.34***.40*** Emotional Support Humor Instrumental Support Planning * Religious ** Venting Emotions.28***.23***.30***.22*** Table 2 Correlations between Coping Strategies and Depression by Gender at Times 1 and 2 * p <.05; ** p <.01; *** p <.001. To obtain a copy of this poster, please visit **.23*** Note. Standardized coefficients are presented. For ease of interpretation, only significant paths are shown.