Related Research Articles
The Beck Depression Inventory, created by Aaron T. Beck, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory, one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of depression. Its development marked a shift among mental health professionals, who had until then, viewed depression from a psychodynamic perspective, instead of it being rooted in the patient's own thoughts.
The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), also called the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), sometimes also abbreviated as HAM-D, is a multiple-item questionnaire used to provide an indication of depression, and as a guide to evaluate recovery. Max Hamilton originally published the scale in 1960 and revised it in 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1980. The questionnaire is designed for adults and is used to rate the severity of their depression by probing mood, feelings of guilt, suicide ideation, insomnia, agitation or retardation, anxiety, weight loss, and somatic symptoms.
The Clinical Global Impression (CGI) rating scales are measures of symptom severity, treatment response and the efficacy of treatments in treatment studies of patients with mental disorders. It is a brief 3-item observer-rated scale that can be used in clinical practice as well as in researches to track symptom changes. It was developed by Early Clinical Drug Evaluation Program (ECDEU) team of researchers for use in NIMH-led clinical trials that could provide clinical judgment based assessment for determining the severity of symptoms and the treatment progress. This was meant to assess the patient's functioning prior to and after initiating medication in trials which is an important part of study process. Its 3 items assess, 1) Severity of Illness (CGI-S), 2) Global Improvement (CGI-I), and 3) Efficacy Index. Many researchers, while recognizing the validity of the scale, consider it to be subjective as it requires the user of the scale to compare the subjects to typical patients in the clinician experience.
The Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is a test to rate the severity of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms.
The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), created by Aaron T. Beck and other colleagues, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory that is used for measuring the severity of anxiety in adolescents and adults ages 17 and older. The questions used in this measure ask about common symptoms of anxiety that the subject has had during the past week. It is designed for individuals who are of 17 years of age or older and takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Several studies have found the Beck Anxiety Inventory to be an accurate measure of anxiety symptoms in children and adults.
The Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), developed by Vincent E Ziegler and popularised by Robert Young, is an eleven-item multiple choice diagnostic questionnaire which psychiatrists use to measure the presence and severity of mania and associated symptoms. The scale was originally developed for use in the evaluation of adult patients with bipolar disorder, but has since been adapted for use in pediatric patients. The scale is widely used by clinicians and researchers in the diagnosis, evaluation, and quantification of manic symptomology.
The Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) is a ten-item diagnostic questionnaire which psychiatrists use to measure the severity of depressive episodes in patients with mood disorders. It was designed in 1979 by British and Swedish researchers as an adjunct to the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) which would be more sensitive to the changes brought on by antidepressants and other forms of treatment than the Hamilton Scale was. There is, however, a high degree of statistical correlation between scores on the two measures.
A depression rating scale is a psychiatric measuring instrument having descriptive words and phrases that indicate the severity of depression for a time period. When used, an observer may make judgements and rate a person at a specified scale level with respect to identified characteristics. Rather than being used to diagnose depression, a depression rating scale may be used to assign a score to a person's behaviour where that score may be used to determine whether that person should be evaluated more thoroughly for a depressive disorder diagnosis. Several rating scales are used for this purpose.
The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS) is a collection of psychiatric diagnostic criteria and symptom rating scales originally published in 1978. It is organized as a semi-structured diagnostic interview. The structured aspect is that every interview asks screening questions about the same set of disorders regardless of the presenting problem; and positive screens get explored with a consistent set of symptoms. These features increase the sensitivity of the interview and the inter-rater reliability of the resulting diagnoses. The SADS also allows more flexibility than fully structured interviews: Interviewers can use their own words and rephrase questions, and some clinical judgment is used to score responses. There are three versions of the schedule, the regular SADS, the lifetime version (SADS-L) and a version for measuring the change in symptomology (SADS-C). Although largely replaced by more structured interviews that follow diagnostic criteria such as DSM-IV and DSM-5, and specific mood rating scales, versions of the SADS are still used in some research papers today.
The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a multiple-choice self-report inventory that is used as a screening and diagnostic tool for mental health disorders of depression, anxiety, alcohol, eating, and somatoform disorders. It is the self-report version of the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD), a diagnostic tool developed in the mid-1990s by Pfizer Inc. The length of the original assessment limited its feasibility; consequently, a shorter version, consisting of 11 multi-part questions - the Patient Health Questionnaire was developed and validated.
The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) is a psychological questionnaire used by clinicians to rate the severity of a patient's anxiety. Anxiety can refer to things such as "a mental state...a drive...a response to a particular situation…a personality trait...and a psychiatric disorder." Though it was one of the first anxiety rating scales to be published, the HAM-A remains widely used by clinicians. It was originally published by Max Hamilton in 1959. For clinical purposes, and the purpose of this scale, only severe or improper anxiety is attended to. This scale is considered a "clinical rating" of the extensiveness of anxiety, and is intended for individuals that are "already diagnosed with anxiety neurosis."
The Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scale (VADRS) is a psychological assessment tool for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and their effects on behavior and academic performance in children ages 6–12. This measure was developed by Mark L Wolraich at the Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and includes items related to oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, anxiety, and depression, disorders often comorbid with ADHD.
The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) is a self-report screening questionnaire for anxiety disorders developed in 1997. The SCARED is intended for youth, 9–18 years old, and their parents to complete in about 10 minutes. It can discriminate between depression and anxiety, as well as among distinct anxiety disorders. The SCARED is useful for generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobic disorders, and potentially school anxiety problems. Most available self-report instruments that measure anxiety in children look at general aspects of anxiety rather than Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) categorizations. The SCARED was developed as an instrument for both children and their parents that would encompass several DSM-IV categorizations of the anxiety disorders: somatic/panic, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social phobia, and school phobia.
The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) is a self-report questionnaire designed to help detect bipolar disorder. It focuses on symptoms of hypomania and mania, which are the mood states that separate bipolar disorders from other types of depression and mood disorder. It has 5 main questions, and the first question has 13 parts, for a total of 17 questions. The MDQ was originally tested with adults, but it also has been studied in adolescents ages 11 years and above. It takes approximately 5–10 minutes to complete. In 2006, a parent-report version was created to allow for assessment of bipolar symptoms in children or adolescents from a caregiver perspective, with the research looking at youths as young as 5 years old. The MDQ has become one of the most widely studied and used questionnaires for bipolar disorder, and it has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
The Child Mania Rating Scales (CMRS) is a 21-item diagnostic screening measure designed to identify symptoms of mania in children and adolescents aged 9–17 using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV, developed by Pavuluri and colleagues. There is also a 10-item short form. The measure assesses the child's mood and behavior symptoms, asking parents or teachers to rate how often the symptoms have caused a problem for the youth in the past month. Clinical studies have found the CMRS to be reliable and valid when completed by parents in the assessment of children's bipolar symptoms. The CMRS also can differentiate cases of pediatric bipolar disorder from those with ADHD or no disorder, as well as delineating bipolar subtypes. A meta-analysis comparing the different rating scales available found that the CMRS was one of the best performing scales in terms of telling cases with bipolar disorder apart from other clinical diagnoses. The CMRS has also been found to provide a reliable and valid assessment of symptoms longitudinally over the course of treatment. The combination of showing good reliability and validity across multiple samples and clinical settings, along with being free and brief to score, make the CMRS a promising tool, especially since most other checklists available for youths do not assess manic symptoms.
The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is a survey that measures depressive symptoms in children and young adults. It was developed by Adrian Angold and Elizabeth J. Costello in 1987, and validity data were gathered as part of the Great Smokey Mountain epidemiological study in Western North Carolina. The questionnaire consists of a variety of statements describing feelings or behaviors that may manifest as depressive symptoms in children between the ages of 6 and 17. The subject is asked to indicate how much each statement applies to their recent experiences. The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire has six versions, short and long forms of each of the following: a youth self-report, a version that a parent would complete, and a self-report version for adults. Several peer-reviewed studies have found the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire to be a reliable and valid measure of depression in children. Compared to many other depression scales for youth, it has more extensive coverage of symptoms and more age-appropriate wording and content.
The General Behavior Inventory (GBI) is a 73-question psychological self-report assessment tool designed by Richard Depue and colleagues to identify the presence and severity of manic and depressive moods in adults, as well as to assess for cyclothymia. It is one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of bipolar disorder and the fluctuation of symptoms over time. The GBI is intended to be administered for adult populations; however, it has been adapted into versions that allow for juvenile populations, as well as a short version that allows for it to be used as a screening test.
The Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS) is a semi-structured interview aimed at early diagnosis of affective disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder. There are different versions of the test that have use different versions of diagnostic criteria, cover somewhat different diagnoses and use different rating scales for the items. All versions are structured to include interviews with both the child and the parents or guardians, and all use a combination of screening questions and more comprehensive modules to balance interview length and thoroughness.
Stan Kutcher is a Canadian Senator and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University. He was appointed to the Senate of Canada on December 12, 2018. Before his appointment, Dr. Kutcher was Department Head of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University, as well as Associate Dean of International Health, and where he most recently held the Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health.[i] He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.[i] He was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia in 2014.[ii]
References
- 1 2 3 Kutcher, Stan (2003). "The Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale: Assessment of its Evaluative Properties over the Course of an 8-Week Pediatric Pharmacotherapy Trial". Child Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 13 (3): 337–49. doi:10.1089/104454603322572679. PMID 14642022.
- ↑ Brooks, Sarah; Kutcher, Stan (2003). "Diagnosis and Measurement of Adolescent Depression: A Review of Commonly Utilized Instruments". Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 13 (3): 341–76. doi:10.1089/104454603322572688. PMID 14642023.
- ↑ Brooks, Sarah (2004). "The Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale (11-Item)" (PDF). Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology News. 9 (5): 4–6. doi:10.1521/capn.9.5.4.52044. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-26. Retrieved 2013-03-04.