The identifying of depression’ risk in students with impaired hearing and vision

Abstract

Introduction

The depressive states in adolescents have their specificity: they are often poorly understood by the children themselves as reduced mood and can be expressed in the growth of aggressive behaviour, stubbornness, oppositional behavior, care. Even the pre-clinical level of depression can have a significant negative impact on the lives of adolescents.

Materials

One hundred and seventy-three visually and 139 hearing impaired students of correctional boarding schools, 7–18 years old.

Methods

Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) M. Kovacs, statistical (nonparametric test Mann–Whitney).

Results

At 20.8% the increased and at 3.1% the high risk of depression was identified. For students with visual impairments often were characterized by significantly higher scores on a scale of “anhedonia” and “incompetence”. The girls revealed significantly higher scores for total scale depression, the scale “negative mood”, “interpersonal problems” and “negative self-esteem”.

A comparative analysis of data, obtained by different researchers was held. There were no literature sources, which would have provided data about the level of depression of children with sensory impairments.

Conclusions

Children with sensory impairments have a greater risk of developing depression in comparison with pupils of general education schools. Therefore, a screening of children in this category on the level of depression should be obligatory in addition to clinical examination. The detected data must be taken into account in psychotherapeutic and preventive measures.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.