Affective symptoms at index hospitalization in childhood and depressive symptoms in adulthood: a ‘catch-up’ study

Purpose: To analyze whether affective symptoms during psychiatric treatment in childhood or adolescence could predict the later development of depressive symptoms. Method: We used a ‘catch-up’ design. A cohort of former child and adolescent psychiatric patients was assessed in adulthood with standardized instruments according to the criteria of ICD-10 (SCAN) and dimensional values for depression (both self-reported and observer-rated). Initial affective symptoms had been extracted from clinical records according to a standardized system (AMDP). Results: We assessed 164 former patients. Twelve percent of these fulfilled diagnostic criteria of an affective disorder (F3) according to ICD-10. In univariate analyses of variance the depression scores were significantly related to affective symptoms during childhood treatment, even if the presence of an affective disorder at catch-up was considered as an independent covariate variable. Nevertheless, the latter variable explained a large part of the variance of depression scores, while initial affective symptoms explained no more than 6%. Conclusion: Affective symptoms in childhood and adolescence may predict the later development of subthreshold depressive symptomatology.