Trial reportEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2017
"Did I bring it on myself?" An exploratory study of the beliefs that adolescents referred to mental health services have about the causes of their depression.
Trial report in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Parents' experiences of their adolescent child's depression: a qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis.BMC psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Perceptions on mental health and depression by adolescents, a systematic review of qualitative studies.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- The Acceptability, Engagement, and Feasibility of Mental Health Apps for Marginalized and Underserved Young People: Systematic Review and Qualitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Pooled it
- An early intervention for adolescent depression targeting emotional mental images and memory specificity: a process evaluation.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2023Trial
- The therapeutic relationship in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy with depressed adolescents: A qualitative study of good-outcome cases.Psychology and psychotherapy · 2020Trial
- Group cognitive behavioural therapy can reduce stigma and improve treatment compliance in major depressive disorder patients.Early intervention in psychiatry · 2020Trial
- Children's experiences of living with their mental ill-health - a scoping review.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Article
- Exploring the association between social camouflaging and self- versus caregiver-report discrepancies in anxiety and depressive symptoms in autistic and non-autistic socially anxious adolescents.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2024Article
- Dealing with overwhelming life situations - young people's experiences of becoming depressed.Scandinavian journal of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology · 2024Article
- The Power Threat Meaning Framework: a qualitative study of depression in adolescents and young adults.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Adolescent help-seeking: an exploration of associations with perceived cause of emotional distress.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Psychotherapy as making.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Using Imagery Rescripting as an Early Intervention for Depression in Young People.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Adolescents' Understanding of What Causes Emotional Distress: A Qualitative Exploration in a Non-clinical Sample Using Ideal-Type Analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Am I Really Bipolar? Personal Accounts of the Experience of Being Diagnosed With Bipolar II Disorder.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The causal beliefs which adults have regarding their mental health difficulties have been linked to help-seeking behaviour, treatment preferences, and the outcome of therapy; yet, the topic remains a relatively unexplored one in the adolescent literature. This exploratory study aims to explore the causal beliefs regarding depression among a sample of clinically referred adolescents. Seventy seven adolescents, aged between 11 and 17, all diagnosed with moderate to severe depression, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule, at the beginning of their participation in a randomised controlled trial. Data were analysed qualitatively using framework analysis. The study identified three themes related to causal beliefs: (1) bewilderment about why they were depressed; (2) depression as a result of rejection, victimisation, and stress; and (3) something inside is to blame. Although some adolescents struggled to identify the causes of their depression, many identified stressful life experiences as the cause of their current depression. They also tended to emphasise their own negative ways of interpreting those events, and some believed that their depression was caused by something inside them. Adolescents' causal beliefs are likely to have implications for the way they seek help and engage in treatment, making it important to understand how adolescents understand their difficulties.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.