Convergence of children's depression rating scale-revised scores and clinical diagnosis in rating adolescent depressive symptomatology

Abstract

The Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) is a widely used instrument for research on depression in minors. A raw score of ?40 has often been used as indicator of depressive symptomatology. As a validated German version of the CDRS-R has recently became available, we assessed CDRS-R raw summary scores of a video taped interview session in two different rater groups and compared them with clinical ratings of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) depression diagnosis as observed by a third independent group. We found that for the German version a raw score between 35 and 40 is indicative for mild depressive symptomatology as described by the ICD-10. CDRS-R scores show potential clinical applicability to deduct levels of depression.

Citation

Plener, P.L., Grieb, J., Spröber, N., Straub, J., Schneider, A., Keller, F. and Kölch, M.G. (2012), "Convergence of children's depression rating scale-revised scores and clinical diagnosis in rating adolescent depressive symptomatology", Mental Illness, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 29-31. https://doi.org/10.4081/mi.2012.e7