20390
Friends for Foes: How Friendship May Buffer the Effects of Victimization on Depression in Adolescents with High Functioning Autism
Objectives: This study sought to examine victimization and depression differences, as well as investigate variations in the presence and quality of friendships in HFA and TD adolescents.
Methods: Twenty HFA and 36 TD participants 10-21 years of age were matched on chronological and mental age. The ADOS was used to confirm diagnosis. The ADOS Friends and Marriage questions were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2008) and focused on three main themes: Poor Quality Friendships, Limited Social Network, and Difficulty Understanding Friendship. A Negative Friendship Total was also calculated. Participants completed the Social Experiences Questionnaire (Crick & Grotpeter, 1996) yielding Overt Victimization (Overt_Vict), Relational Victimization (Relational_Vict), and Prosocial Support (Prosocial_Sup) scores. Depression was assessed using the Child Depression Inventory (Kovac, 1992) or the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression inventory (CESD; Radloff, 1977) depending on chronological age. Depression scores underwent z-score transformations to ensure that they were on the same scale.
Results: Separate hierarchical regressions predicting depression revealed: (1) a significant main effect for Relational_Vict and a significant interaction effect for Relational_Vict by Prosocial_Sup and (2) significant main effect for Overt_Vict but no significant Overt_Vict by Prosocial_Sup interaction. Main effects for Prosocial_Sup were not observed in either regression model (see Table 1)[1]. To understand the influence of friendship on Prosocial_Sup, additional regression analyses were conducted. Results suggested that higher Negative Friendship Totals significantly predicted the lower Prosocial_Sup (see Table 2). Regression models predicting Prosocial_Sup from Limited Social Network, Understanding Friendship, and Poor Quality Friendships were not significant.
[1] Regression models examining group effects were also conducted, but group main effects and interactions were not significant in any model, and these predictors were removed from the models.