The effects of family system functioning on the pupils' depressive mood

Abstract

In our study, the Family Assessment Inventory was administered to 267 junior high school pupils and their fathers and mothers. Also, the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) was administered to the pupils. The data were analyzed using covariance structure analysis to examine the two hypotheses about the relationship between each family member's perception of family function and the pupils' depressive mood. The following two hypotheses were tested : 1) The parents' perception of family function with respect to familial communication, satisfaction and cohesion affected the children's perception of family functioning with the same three variables having inverse correlation with the CDI score. 2) The parents' perception of the family flexibility and family rules had an influence on the children's perception of the same two variables having, at the same time, a curvilinear relationship with the CDI score. The path -model based on the first hypothesis was supported by the satisfactory goodness of fit with the covariance matrix. The present study clarified the relationship between the perception of family function and the pupils' depressive mood.