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Objective Building on an earlier study (Compas, Forehand, Thigpen, et al., 2011), tests of main effects and potential moderators of a family group cognitive-behavioral (FGCB) preventive intervention for children of parents with a history of depression are reported. Method Assessed a sample of 180 families (242 children ages 9-15 years) in a randomized controlled trial assessed at 2, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after baseline. Results Significant effects favoring the FGCB intervention over a written information comparison condition were found on measures of children's symptoms of depression, mixed anxiety/depression, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems, with multiple effects maintained at 18 and 24 months, and on incidence of child episodes of major depressive disorder over the 24 months. Effects were stronger for child self-reports than for parent reports. Minimal evidence was found for child age, child gender, parental education, parental depressive symptoms, or presence of a current parental depressive episode at baseline as moderators of the FGCB intervention. Conclusions The findings provide support for sustained and robust effects of this preventive intervention.

The development of a measure of coping and involuntary stress responses in adolescence is described. The Responses to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) reflects a conceptual model that includes volitional coping efforts and involuntary responses to specific stressful events or specified domains of stress. The psychometric characteristics of the RSQ were examined across 4 domains of stress in 3 samples of adolescents and parent reports obtained in 2 samples. The factor structure of the RSQ was tested and replicated with an adequate degree of fit using confirmatory factor analysis across 3 stressors in 2 samples. Internal consistency and retest reliability for the 5 factors were adequate to excellent. Concurrent validity was established through correlations with another measure of coping, heart rate reactivity, and correlations of self- and parent-reports. Significant correlations with both adolescents' and parents' reports of internalizing and externalizing symptoms were consistent with hypotheses.

Interventions in health psychology and behavioral medicine represent an integral area of research for the development of psychological therapies to enhance health behaviors, manage symptoms and sequelae of disease, treat psychological symptoms and disorders, prolong survival in the face of a life-threatening illness, and improve quality of life. A sampling of interventions in health psychology and behavioral medicine is offered that meet the criteria for empirically supported treatments for smoking cessation, chronic pain, cancer, and bulimia nervosa. Evidence for empirically supported treatments is identified, along with promising interventions that do not yet meet the criteria as outlined by D. L. Chambless and S. D. Hollon (1998). Evidence for the effectiveness and clinical significance of these interventions is reviewed, and issues in this area of research are outlined.

This study analyzed the relations among 151 7th- and 8th-grade adolescents' self-evaluations of the occurrence of their behavior, their own subjective distress over their behavior, their perceptions of their personal competence, their perceptions of their mothers' and fathers1 distress over these behaviors, and their parents' reports of the occurrence of adolescent behaviors. As hypothesized, adolescents' self-reports of occurrence of their behaviors were significantly but moderately correlated with their subjective distress about these behaviors, and adolescents made a distinction between the occurrence of a behavior and their distress about it. Externalizing behaviors were rated by adolescents as more distressing to mothers and to fathers than to adolescents themselves, and conversely, internalizing behaviors were rated as more distressing to self than to parents. Ratings of subjective distress were significantly related to self-perceptions of behavioral conduct and self-worth, whereas parents' ratings of the occurrence of behavior were not related to these self-perceptions. An important component of clinical child and adolescent assessment involves obtaining children's and adolescents' selfreports of their emotions and behaviors. The importance of child and adolescent self-reports lies in the unique perspective on their behavior that these reports provide, a perspective that may not be accessible to external raters such as parents or teachers. Furthermore, although children and adolescents rarely refer themselves for clinical services, their personal perspectives on their behaviors and emotions may be an important factor to take into account in clinical interventions. The significance of children and adolescents' self-reports is reflected by their inclusion in Achenbach's (1985) mulliaxial taxonomy for child and adolescent assessment. Within this framework, selfreports are included within the direct assessment axis, to be considered along with data from the additional axes of parent reports, teacher reports, cognitive assessment, and physical assessment. Existing self-report measures of children and adolescents' emotions and behaviors have focused on reports of the occurrence of behavior. That is, respondents are asked to report how often each of a list of emotions and behaviors have occurred within a specified period of time. Although the self-reported frequency of occurrence of problematic behaviors and emotions has been shown to be an important variable indistinguish

Reports of adolescents' coping with recurrent pain, symptoms of anxiety/depression, and somatic complaints were obtained from a sample of 164 adolescents with recurrent abdominal pain and their parents. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that coping consisted of 3 nonorthogonal factors: Primary Control Engagement Coping (problem solving, emotional expression, and emotional regulation), Secondary Control Engagement Coping (positive thinking, cognitive restructuring, acceptance, and distraction), and Disengagement Coping (denial, avoidance, and wishful thinking). Structural equation modeling using latent variables revealed that secondary control engagement coping predicted lower levels of anxiety/depression symptoms and somatic complaints, and disengagement coping was related to higher levels of anxiety/depression and somatic complaints. Implications for understanding child and adolescent coping with pain are highlighted.

The development of a measure of coping and involuntary stress responses in adolescence is described. The Responses to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) reflects a conceptual model that includes volitional coping efforts and involuntary responses to specific stressful events or specified domains of stress. The psychometric characteristics of the RSQ were examined across 4 domains of stress in 3 samples of adolescents and parent reports obtained in 2 samples. The factor structure of the RSQ was tested and replicated with an adequate degree of fit using confirmatory factor analysis across 3 stressors in 2 samples. Internal consistency and retest reliability for the 5 factors were adequate to excellent. Concurrent validity was established through correlations with another measure of coping, heart rate reactivity, and correlations of self- and parent-reports. Significant correlations with both adolescents' and parents' reports of internalizing and externalizing symptoms were consistent with hypotheses.

Interventions in health psychology and behavioral medicine represent an integral area of research for the development of psychological therapies to enhance health behaviors, manage symptoms and sequelae of disease, treat psychological symptoms and disorders, prolong survival in the face of a life-threatening illness, and improve quality of life. A sampling of interventions in health psychology and behavioral medicine is offered that meet the criteria for empirically supported treatments for smoking cessation, chronic pain, cancer, and bulimia nervosa. Evidence for empirically supported treatments is identified, along with promising interventions that do not yet meet the criteria as outlined by D. L. Chambless and S. D. Hollon (1998). Evidence for the effectiveness and clinical significance of these interventions is reviewed, and issues in this area of research are outlined.

Gender differences in depressed mood, a syndrome of mixed anxiety-depression, and an analogue of major depressive disorder were compared in parents' and adolescents' reports in 2 large, demographically matched national samples of clinically referred and nonreferred adolescents. Referral status accounted for the greatest share of the variance in these problems. Gender differences were moderate in size and consistent in referred youths, with referred girls scoring higher than referred boys on all measures, whereas gender differences in nonreferred adolescents were either nonsignificant or small in magnitude. Gender differences were also larger in magnitude in adolescents' self-reports than in parents' reports. The interaction of age and gender was nonsignificant in all analyses. Implications for understanding the extent of gender differences in adolescents' depressive symptoms are highlighted.

Nosological (symptom overlap) and methodological (informant) artifact in the covariation of an empirically derived syndrome of anxious-depressed symptoms with 7 other syndromes of emotional and behavior problems was examined in reports by parents, teachers, and adolescents on a nationally representative sample of 908 adolescents. Although minor symptom overlap was observed and the effects of informant were significant, the anxious-depressed syndrome covaried significantly with all other syndromes after controlling for these effects. Indices of covariation controlling for informant effects were all significant and ranged for all syndromes except for delinquent behavior from .619 to .681, reflecting significant covariation of the anxious-depressed syndrome with both externalizing and internalizing syndromes. Covariation of the anxious-depressed syndrome and delinquent behavior was .470. Implications for research on the comorbidity-covariation of depressive syndromes during childhood and adolescence are highlighted.

This study was an examination of the possible mechanisms of risk among adolescents (n = 55) exposed to the stress associated with the diagnosis of cancer in a parent. Girls whose mothers had cancer reported significantly more anxious-depressed symptoms than girls whose fathers were ill or boys whose mothers or fathers had cancer. Increased family responsibilities and the use of ruminative coping were examined as possible mechanisms leading to increased distress in girls with ill mothers. Although girls reported the use of more ruminative coping, rumination did not account for the impact of maternal cancer on girls' distress. Girls whose mothers were ill reported more stressful events reflecting family responsibilities. Furthermore, family responsibility stress fully accounted for the interaction of gender of the ill parent and gender of the adolescent in predicting anxious-depressed symptoms.

This study analyzed the relations among 151 7th- and 8th-grade adolescents' self-evaluations of the occurrence of their behavior, their own subjective distress over their behavior, their perceptions of their personal competence, their perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' distress over these behaviors, and their parents' reports of the occurrence of adolescent behaviors. As hypothesized, adolescents' self-reports of occurrence of their behaviors were significantly but moderately correlated with their subjective distress about these behaviors, and adolescents made a distinction between the occurrence of a behavior and their distress about it. Externalizing behaviors were rated by adolescents as more distressing to mothers and to fathers than to adolescents themselves, and conversely, internalizing behaviors were rated as more distressing to self than to parents. Ratings of subjective distress were significantly related to self-perceptions of behavioral conduct and self-worth, whereas parents' ratings of the occurrence of behavior were not related to these self-perceptions.

Four studies were conducted to develop a measure of major and daily stressful events during adolescence, the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale (APES). Study I identified an item pool of events that were drawn from the open-ended reports of adolescents. In Study 2, multidimensional scaling analysis was used to identify the salient features of stressful events that were cognitively appraised by adolescents. Study 3 examined the test-retest reliability of the APES, and Study 4 examined the concurrent validity of the measure among older adolescents. Subsequent research is summarized that has shown the APES to be significantly related to behavior problems and psychological symptomatology in a wide age range of adolescents, and directions for future research are outlined. The stressful life events encountered by individuals consti

Stressful events in the lives of 309 10- to 15-year-olds and stressful events and psychological symptoms reported by their parents were examined in a 9-month study. Ss' self-reported emotional/ behavioral problems were predicted by their reports of stressful events and their fathers' reports of psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses. Analyses at follow-up after controlling for initial reports of emotional/behavioral problems and prospective analyses predicting from first assessment to follow-up yielded significant effects for Ss' self-reported stressful events. Mothers' reports of children's problems were predicted by mothers' psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses and at follow-up after controlling for initial emotional/behavioral problems. Only prior levels of maternal reports of emotional/behavioral problems predicted mothers' reports of their children's problems 9 months later. The identification of factors associated with increased risk for emotional/behavioral problems in adolescents is essential for the accurate prediction and prevention of such problems. Establishing markers of increased probability of maladjustment in community samples is particularly important for developing primary prevention efforts directed at nondisordered populations. Two potential sources of risk for adolescent emotional/behavioral problems are stressful events in the lives of adolescents and stressors and psychological symptoms in their parents. Cross-sectional studies have shown an association between stressful events and emotional/behavioral problems in adolescents (Compas, 1987; Johnson, 1986). However, prospective studies are needed to examine whether stress is predictive of later maladjustment and to clarify the direction of the relation between these variables (Compas & Phares, in press). One approach is to test the concurrent association between stressful events and psychological symptoms after controlling for prior symptoms. This design examines the contribution of stressful events to changes in symptoms over time. A second approach is to test the prediction of symptoms at one time from stressful events measured at a prior time, again controlling for prior levels of symptoms. This design is less affected by possible confounds between stressful events and symptoms than when they are assessed concurrently. Although these designs cannot be

Both the capacity to generate alternative solutions to cope with stressful events and the strategies actually used to cope with interpersonal and academic stressors were examined in a sample of junior high school age youngsters. Subjects were moderately consistent in the generation and use of pToblem- and emotion-focused coping with the two types of events, and they adjusted the numbiT of problem-focused alternative solutions they generated to match their appraisals of the controllability of the cause of interpersonal stressors. The number of alternative solutions generated and strategies used for interpersonal stressors was related to both self-reports and maternal reports of internalizing and externalizing emotional/behavioral problems. Specifically, the problem-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were negatively related to emotional/behavioral problems, wherea s the emotion-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were positively related to emotional/ behavioral problems. Coping with academic stress was not related to emotional/behavioral problems. Self-reported emotional/behavioral problems varied as a function of the match between perceived control and-the generation of problem-focused alternatives for coping with social stressors but did not vary as a function of the match between perceived control and other coping strategies. Stressful events of both major and minor magnitude in the lives of children and adolescents are significantly related to youngsters' emotional and behavioral problems (see reviews by Compas, 1987b; Johnson, 1986). However, substantial individual differences exist in the levels of problems that are associated with stressful experiences. This variability is due in part to differences in the resources available and methods used by children and adolescents to cope with adverse events (Compas, 1987a). Prior studies of child and adolescent coping have shown that cognitive and behavioral efforts to alter sources of stress as well as attempts to regulate the negative emotions associated with stressful circumstances are important in reducing the negative effects of a range of stressful events, including interpersonal problems and achievement-related stressors (Compas, 1987a).

Stressful events in the lives of 309 10- to 15-year-olds and stressful events and psychological symptoms reported by their parents were examined in a 9-month study. Ss' self-reported emotional/behavioral problems were predicted by their reports of stressful events and their fathers' reports of psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses. Analyses at follow-up after controlling for initial reports of emotional/behavioral problems and prospective analyses predicting from first assessment to follow-up yielded significant effects for Ss' self-reported stressful events. Mothers' reports of children's problems were predicted by mothers' psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses and at follow-up after controlling for initial emotional/behavioral problems. Only prior levels of maternal reports of emotional/behavioral problems predicted mothers' reports of their children's problems 9 months later.