The Influence of Parent-Adolescent Communication on Adolescent's Depression: Mediation effect of Self-Esteem and Irrational Belief

Abstract

This study was to investigate mediator effects in the influence of the parent-adolescent communication on depression. Participants were high school students in Seoul, Busan, and Gyeonggi in Korea. They completed a package of measures; parent-adolescent communication scale, self-esteem scale, irrational beliefs test, Korea depression scale. Participants who did not answer any questionnaire were excluded from the analysis. The final sample size was 339. Female adolescents scored higher on depression and male adolescents scored higher on self-esteem. This study showed that self-esteem and irrational beliefs had a mediating effect between parent-adolescent communication and depression, although parent-adolescent communication didn't have an direct effect on depression. This result suggest that parent-adolescent communication influence depression through self-esteem and irrational beliefs. The self-esteem was the most significant means of predicting adolescent depression. Finally, Implications, limitations of this study and suggestions for the future study were discussed.