This study examined the help-seeking behaviors of depressed, African American adolescents. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 18 urban, African American boys, ages 14 to 18, who were recruited from community-based mental health centers and after-school programs for youths. Interviews covered sociodemographic information, questions regarding depressive symptomotology, and open-ended questions derived from the Network-Episode Model--including knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to problem recognition, help seeking, and perceptions of mental health services. Most often adolescents discussed their problems with their family and often received divergent messages about problem resolution; absent informal network resolution of their problems, professional help would be sought, and those receiving treatment were more likely to get support from friends but were less likely to tell friends that they were actually receiving care. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.

Purpose To extend understanding of the effects of maternal depression on children to low-income and minority families; to apply advanced analytic methods to incorporate the reports of mothers, fathers, and teachers on the emotional and behavior problems and adaptive skills of 4–10 year old urban children; and to examine parenting quality and family environment as possible explanations of high rates of problems among children whose mothers have depression compared to those whose mothers are not depressed. Methods Mothers who participated either had major depressive disorder (n=84) or did not (n=49). They were predominantly African-American or Latino and lived in low-income, urban communities. Mothers, fathers, and teachers reported on children’s emotional, behavioral and adaptive functioning. Parenting behavior and family stress were examined as potential mediators and generalized estimating equations (GEE) were employed to test mediation and to account for discrepancies in reports by different raters. Results By mother, father and teacher reports, children of depressed mothers had significantly poorer adaptive skills than children of sociodemographically-similar non-depressed mothers; and they had more emotional/behavior problems according to mothers and fathers. The quality of mothers’ parenting mediated these associations, but quality of the family environment did not. Conclusions This study extends the literature on the effects of maternal depression to low-income, minority families, and demonstrates that mothers, fathers and teachers observe worse functioning in children of depressed mothers than those of non-depressed mothers, although their perspectives vary somewhat. The impact of maternal depression suggests the importance of developing and funding services to address the needs of affected families.

The results support the need to expand access to, and support participation in, depression treatment among low-income women from minority racial-ethnic groups. Although treatment alone of this undertreated population was not associated with improvement in children's outcomes, it is a necessary first step to prevent psychopathology among offspring of depressed parents.

This study contributes to the scientific literature by demonstrating the effects of raters and testing mediators of maternal depression in low-income African-American and Latino families. It demonstrated that mothers, fathers, and teachers observed worse functioning among children of mothers with depression than without depression, although reporters' perspectives varied somewhat. The impact of maternal depression over and above that of poverty suggests the importance of developing and funding services to address the needs of affected families.

The effects of ad libitum smoking, abstinence, and 0-, 2-, and 4-mg nicotine gum on human cooperative responding were examined. Participants were provided the opportunity to respond cooperatively or independently to episodes initiated by a computer-simulated other person. Participants could also initiate episodes that ostensibly provided the other person the opportunity to respond cooperatively or independently of the participant. Working cooperatively added points to both the participant's and other person's counters. Working independently added points only to the participant's counter. Results demonstrated that abstinence decreased cooperative responses during episodes initiated by the computer-stimulated other person. Relative to abstinence and placebo gum conditions, ad libitum smoking and administration of 2- and 4-mg nicotine gum increased these cooperative responses. No gender differences were observed. The number of cooperative episodes initiated by the participants was not affected significantly by the smoking or gum conditions. Nicotine increased reports of vigor and decreased abstinence-engendered reports of depression, anger, confusion, and tension. The difference in the effects of nicotine abstinence on the 2 classes of cooperative responding demonstrates that the social contingency mediates the behavioral effects of abstinence.

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