At Risk Youth

A new study out of Ohio State University has found that most teenage bloggers use their on-line journals to stay connected with peers, and nurture relationships.

• Dawn Anderson-Butcher, an associate professor of social work at Ohio State, and her students studied the posts of 100 teen bloggers, to get a sense for what teenagers were talking about online.
• Most blogs were about positive activities like studying, extracurricular activities, and time spent with family.
• Anderson-Butcher sees potential for social workers, who often struggle to find effective ways of helping teens connect socially.
• While blogging can’t replace face-to-face interaction, it can give teens a much-needed creative outlet.

“This preliminary study suggests that blogging could be used therapeutically to help troubled teens express themselves in positive ways,” Anderson-Butcher said in a ScienceDaily article about the research.

Several psychologists and professors who specialize in adolescent psychology are trying to come up with new ways of preventing teenage suicides. The solution may be in a certain kind of talk therapy.

Teenage suicide attempts occur about two million times a year. Teens who attempt suicide become ten to 60 times more likely to die by their own hands in the future.

• Dr. Barbara Stanley of Columbia University and her colleagues refused to accept the supposition that suicide prevention does not work because teenagers who enroll in it notoriously drop out.
• Her group suggests that after teenagers attempt suicide, they should talk to a therapist unafraid of discussing the events that led up to the suicide attempt.
• Dr. Stanley noted that most suicidal teenagers are depressed so an event that can appear trivial to the adults in their lives can be significant enough to push them over the edge

“The brains of depressed people who attempt suicide are different from those who do not,” said Dr. Stanley. “Our point of view is that while they need treatment for depression, they also need therapy tailored to help with their suicidal thoughts and behavior.”

The study appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Children whose parents are depressed are more at risk for depression themselves. Now two new studies from Vanderbilt University indicate that family treatments for depression may lower a child’s risk.

The first study looked at two groups of adults with depression, and their children ages 9 to 15 years old. One group was assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy as a family unit. The other group used written materials that children and parents read on their own.

Children in the first group had half the incidence of depression compared to children in the second. The greatest benefits occurred a year after participation in the two kinds of therapy. The study appeared in the Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology.

The second study found that cognitive behavioral therapy could help teenagers, but did not necessarily help parents with depression.

“We now have extremely encouraging evidence from two studies conducted at Vanderbilt, that we may be able to reduce the incidence of depression and other mental health problems in children at high risk,” said Prof. Bruce Compas.

The second study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Young people with depression are more likely to do poorly in school and relationships, and they are at higher risk for substance abuse and suicide.