Translating Clinical Psychology Research Papers

Translating Clinical Psychology Research Papers

Introduction

According to Tonje Zahl, the first author of the popular paper on Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior and Symptoms of Major Depression in Middle Childhood and a PHD candidate at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) “Being active, getting sweaty and roughhousing offer more than just physical health benefits. They also protect against depression”. Moreover, Silje Steinsbekk, a coauthor, a mentor to Tonje, and an associate professor at NTNU Department of Psychology adds that. “This is important to know because it may suggest that physical activity can be used to prevent and treat depression already in childhood.” After reading the popular article, one would conclude that it is essential that parents facilitate the physical activity of their children. This means that they should ensure their children become a little sweaty through activities such as outdoor play or bike riding. Furthermore, one would conclude that restricting your children from sedentary lifestyles, such as watching TV, is not enough. Therefore we should increase children’s physical activity.

Results

The popular article included the most critical result. It predicts that those children at the age of 6 and 8 who participated in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), two years later, they were likely to have fewer symptoms of major depressive disorder. It also added that sedentary behavior in children at the age of 6 and 8 is not expected to lead to depression, and neither was depression likely to lead to MVPA or sedentary activities. However, even though the popular article indicated that the symptoms of major depression were expected to decline from ages 6 to 8 years, it failed to mention the extent of stability of those that showed depressive symptoms. This would have been helpful for the reader to know how severe the condition will be for those children that indicate signs of major depression.

Conclusions

I identified some erroneous findings in the popular article. In terms of demographics, I feel that the author generalized the age group when she says, adolescents and adults. The author says, “both observational and treatment studies indicate that physical activity (PA) and moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA), in particular, may reduce the likelihood of major depressive disorder (MDD) and or reduce the symptoms of MDD in adolescents and adults.” This is a very general description because adolescence starts at the age of 13 to 19; therefore, she does not explain what happens to children at the age of 11 and 12. Moreover, she also mentions that “depression can also be present in young children,” a very general description that does not classify children according to age.

I think that the popular article has a low external validity in late childhood. The results of the report do not apply to children between the age of 8 and 12 years because it focuses on children between the ages of 6 to 8 years. On the other hand, the popular article had a low internal validity does not extensively research on the impact of physical activity (PA) on different genders. Also, it does not consider the medical history of those children who are subject to the test. Some of them might be having medical issues, which, of course, will jeopardize the results of the research. Besides, the two year period that the study uses to analyze the impact of the physical activity on children a long time determines if one is depressed. Symptoms of depression include low self-esteem, low mood, and lack of energy. These are all temporary or rather short term body changes that can go away for a long, thus making the research erroneous. Moreover, when analyzing the physical activity of the children, they only focused on daytime activities. This makes the study inaccurate because night activities can be a significant time to notice if the children are depressed.

Study Limitations

Yes, the popular article discussed some of the limitations of the research. It highlights that it uses a similar predictor and correlates of subclinical depression to different the MDD symptoms of individuals who fulfilled the DSM cutoff of 5 and those that had under cutoffs. Moreover, the study assumes that increasing MVPA at the population level would reduce the symptoms of depression and the impairments associated with these symptoms in children. Additionally, the research used missing not a random (MNAR) data that weakened the system and therefore made it made the study biased. Besides, alternative explanations such as whether the impact if MVPA on depressive symptoms also differs between countries should have been explained.

Implication

The popular article accurately conveyed the importance of the study. It indicates that increasing MVPA in children at the population level may prevent depression, at least at subclinical levels. Therefore it does not hype-claim.

Overall Evaluation

In my opinion, I feel that the popular article articulately predicted whether using moderate-to-vigorouss physical activity reduces symptoms of major depression in middle childhood and whether it can be used to treat or prevent childhood depression.