(a) early childhood maternal death, paternal death, and parental separation/divorce, and (b) six-month following diagnoses of several anxiety disorders including agoraphobia with and without panic attacks, simple phobia, social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Associations were found between maternal death and agoraphobia with panic attacks as well as between parental separation/divorce and agoraphobia with panic attacks and panic disorder.
Another effect of parental death is depression. In a study designed to determine the population effect of parental death, Gersten, Beals and Kallgren (1991) concluded that the death of a parent is a risk factor for major depression in children. Interestingly, however, it was not found to place children at risk for the development of conduct disorder.
Reinherz, Stewart-Berghauer, Pakiz, Frost, Moeykens and Holmes (1989) conducted a 10-year longitudinal study of early risk for adolescent depression in a lower-middle-class community. Twenty-one percent the 378 fifteen-year-olds studied reported high levels of depressive symptoms on the Children's Depression Inventory. Girls were twice as likely to express depressive symptoms as boys.
Findings regarding childhood risk factors for high levels of depressive symptomatology included serious preschool illness, anxiety expressed at age nine, and death of a parent for girls but not boys. Mediators of high depressive symptoms at adolescence consisted of family cohesiveness and satisfactory social supports as well as adolescents' positive self-perceptions of popularity
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