Factors Causing Depression Among Children in Jordan: What Teachers See

Abstract The purpose of this study is to scrutinize the situation of children with depression in Jordan. The Jordanian translation of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) is used in this study. The original sample on which the study tools were applied consisted of 624 children. The results of the study show that the Jordanian translation of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) has been shown to provide high internal reliability Cronbach's alpha - 0.89. The results of this study indicate that by using a cut -off score of 19 or more 37 children with a prevalence rate of 5.9% forms a group with severe depression and there are no significant differences between boys and girls in the prevalence of depression. The results of the teachers’ interviews show that there is no single cause of depression and it is extremely difficult to separate the different causes. All the teachers in this study discuss how the environmental factors cause the depressed feelings. From the analysis of the findings of the teachers’ interviews two major categories were found, which were related to the home and school factors. According to the home two subcategories were found: family conflict and economic status. School factors also considered as a major category according to the teachers’ interviews, this factor also has two subcategories, which may be described as follows: teacher - Student relationship, negative attitudes toward schools and teachers.