Depressiveness and social relations of juvenile offenders deprived of their liberty

Abstract

The article examines the interrelations between depressiveness and social relations of adolescents, deprived of their liberty due to their offences. The model of unipolar depression is proposed, that assumes that basic conditions for occurrence of depression are adversity and insufficiency of current and past, real or internalized affective relations with social environment, and inefficiency of adaptive mechanisms to overcome that state. 191 male juveniles 15 - 22 years of age, in residential and correctional institutions in Serbia, completed three self-rating scales of depression, and 18 self-rating scales of family and peer relations. The correlation between depression and social relations was 0.745 that explains even 55.50% of the variance. It was largely explained by negative and dismissive family and peer relations, and insufficient individuation in a family. Both family and peer variables gave significant mutually independent contribution to the explanation of depressiveness. Both current and past peer relations had significant mutually independent contribution to the explanation of depressiveness. Findings are in favor to proposed model of depression.Rad se bavi istrazivanjem povezanosti depresivnosti i socijalnih relacija kod adolescenata, lisenih slobode zbog svojih prestupa. Predlozen je model unipolarne depresije, koji pretpostavlja da su bazicni uslovi nastanka depresije nepovoljnost i nedovoljnost sadasnjih i proslih, realnih ili internalizovanih, afektivnih veza sa socijalnom sredinom, i neefikasnost adaptivnih mehanizama da ovo stanje prevazidje. 191 mladica u vaspitnim i popravnim ustanovama Srbije, uzrasta 15-22 g., su popunili tri skale samoprocene depresivnosti, i 18 skala samoprocene odnosa u porodici i vrsnjackoj grupi. Dobijena je korelacija socijalnih varijabli i depresivnosti od 0.745, sto objasnjava cak 55.50% varijanse. Ona je najvecim delom objasnjena negativnim i odbacujucim odnosima u porodici i vrsnjackoj grupi, i nedovoljnom individuacijom u porodici. Varijable porodice i varijable vrsnjacke grupe su dale znacajan medjusobno nezavisan doprinos objasnjenju depresivnosti. Takodje, znacajan medjusobno nezavisan doprinos objasnjenju depresivnosti su dali i sadasnji i prosli vrsnjacki odnosi. Nalazi idu u prilog predlozenom modelu depresije.