Objective This study examined aspects of depressed adolescents' perceived interpersonal functioning as moderators of response to treatment among adolescents treated with interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed adolescents (IPT-A) or treatment as usual (TAU) in school-based health clinics. Method Participants were 63 adolescents (ages 12-18) participating in a clinical trial examining the effectiveness of IPT-A (Mufson, Dorta, Wickramaratne, et al., 2004). The sample consisted of 53 (84.1%) female and 10 (15.9%) male adolescents (mean age = 14.67). Adolescents were 74.6% Latino, 14.3% African American, 1.6% Asian American, and 9.5% other, and they came primarily from low-income families. Adolescents were randomly assigned to receive IPT-A or TAU delivered by school-based mental health clinicians. Assessments were completed at baseline and weeks 4, 8, and 12 (or at early termination) and included the HRSD, CBQ-20, and SAS-SR. Results Multilevel modeling indicated that treatment condition interacted with adolescents' baseline reports of conflict with their mothers and social dysfunction with friends to predict the trajectory of adolescents' depressive symptoms over the course of treatment, controlling for baseline levels of depression. The benefits of IPT-A over TAU were particularly strong for the adolescents who reported high levels of conflict with their mothers and social dysfunction with friends. Conclusions Replication with larger samples would suggest that IPT-A may be particularly helpful for depressed adolescents who are reporting high levels of conflict with their mothers or interpersonal difficulties with friends.
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