title: Validation of the General Practitioner Clinical Research Group 11-item depression scale.
abstract: In trials performed by the General Practitioner Clinical Research Group two rating scales have been employed extensively to measure depression. One includes some 17 target symptoms whilst the second is a shorter scale of 11 items. Although extensively used, neither scale has been validated against other measures of depression. An attempt was made to validate the 11-item scale, completed by the physician, against the Zung self-rating depression scale and the Wakefield Inventory, both patient-completed scales. Using thirty depressed patients the correlation between the 11-item scale and the Zung was 0.59 and between the 11-item scale and the Wakefield it was 0.5. Surprisingly, although the two scales are patient-completed and purport to measure the same thing, the correlation between the Zung and the Wakefield scales was only 0.69. All the correlations were statistically significant at the 1% level.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales