A structured interview version of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression: Reliability and validity.

Abstract

Reliability and validity data are provided for pre- and posttreatment administrations of a structured interview version of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) integrated with the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Ss were 70 adult patients requesting therapy for depression. Results indicate excellent agreement between DIS-HRSD ratings made by graduate students and psychiatrist-administered HRSD ratings. The DIS-HRSD exhibited a pattern of correlation with other scales of depression similar to that of the HRSD, thus supporting the validity of the new scale. Intraclass correlations and concurrent validity estimates obtained from analyzing data separately for pre- and posttest administrations were consistently lower than those obtained from the whole sample, suggesting that methodological shortcomings in prior psychometric studies of the HRSD may have spuriously inflated the obtained results.