Family Factors and Interventions of Adolescent Depression in China

Abstract

Adolescent and child depression (ACD) is not only increasing globally year by year but also has a tendency to occur at an increasingly younger age. A family is the first environment that affects an individual’s psychological development. There is a growing number of studies that prove that family factors are one of the essential factors leading to ACD. This paper aims to summarize how family factors influence ACD in a Chinese cultural context and intervention approaches for family treatment. Through literature reviews, the paper gathered and summarized recent journal articles and experiments on four major aspects of Chinese ACD and family factors (parenting style, parent-child relationship, parents’ marital relationship, and family structure), as well as family therapy-related interventions. It was concluded that family factors including parenting style, parent-child relationship, marital relationship, and family structure could be considered causal factors of ACD to varying degrees. In addition, family therapy has shown significant improvement in ACD.