The relationship between adolescent depression and parental separation/divorce during childhood was assessed. Forty-two subject pairs (mother and adolescent) from divorced families and 93 subject pairs from intact families participated in the study. The present investigation focused on the importance of developmental level of the adolescent at the time of marital rupture. Key factors including interparental conflict, quality of mother-adolescent relationship, quality of father-adolescent relationship, psychological well-being of the mother, frequency of visitation with the non-custodial father, and gender were examined in terms of their impact on adolescent depression when parental divorce had occurred during the subject's childhood. The developmental level of the adolescent at the time of the parental divorce was not found to be a sole predictor of depressive symptomatology in adolescence. Using simple correlations, relationship with mother emerged as the most significant predictor of adolescent depressive symptomatology. Interparental conflict was found to be significantly associated with adolescent depressive symptoms when the parental dissolution occurred during the adolescent's pre-oedipal stage. Females whose parents separated/divorced during their oedipal phase experienced significantly more depressive symptoms when, during the adolescent period, the non-custodial father visited less frequently
