A Trial Production of Self-Rating Depression Scale (2)

Recently, the number of patients suffering from depression has increased to the point that we have to consider how to prepare a better Self-Rating Depression Scale (SRDS). As the second step in making such a SRDS, we analyzed a new SRDS named ”RS- 1”, which was made in our former study. We then chose twenty two items among the thirty items of RS- 1 which had statistically significant difference between the depressed patient's scores and the mildly depressed patient's scores and also between the mildly depressed patient's scores and the not-depressed patient's scores. Thus we made a new SRDS (RS22) composed of these twenty two items. In another case, we chose twenty one itens among the thiry items of RS- 1 which were highly correlative to scores of Hamilton's Rating Scale (HRS)-- the correlation coefficients were higher than 0.45 -- and we made another new SRDS (RS21) composed of these twenty one items. Then we examined 206 out-patients using the RS22 and RS21 as well as HRS. The scores of RS22 and RS21 were lineally related to the scores of HRS (r=0.76 in both) though some subjects did not check some of the items. After all, we recognized that RS22 and RS21 had almost similar validity and reliability as RS- 1. Therfor, we feel that the twenty items which are common to both RS22 and RS21 may be adequate for the analysis of depressed patients, but for the selection and arrengement of the items, further study may be required.