title: The new GRID Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression demonstrates excellent inter-rater reliability for inexperienced and experienced raters before and after training.
abstract: The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) is the de facto international gold standard for the assessment of depression. There are some criticisms, however, especially with regard to its inter-rater reliability, due to the lack of standardized questions or explicit scoring procedures. The GRID-HAMD was developed to provide standardized explicit scoring conventions and a structured interview guide for administration and scoring of the HAMD. We developed the Japanese version of the GRID-HAMD and examined its inter-rater reliability among experienced and inexperienced clinicians (n=70), how rater characteristics may affect it, and how training can improve it in the course of a model training program using videotaped interviews. The results showed that the inter-rater reliability of the GRID-HAMD total score was excellent to almost perfect and those of most individual items were also satisfactory to excellent, both with experienced and inexperienced raters, and both before and after the training. With its standardized definitions, questions and detailed scoring conventions, the GRID-HAMD appears to be the best achievable set of interview guides for the HAMD and can provide a solid tool for highly reliable assessment of depression severity.
authors: Holy Cross Hospital, Kujiri 2431-160, Izumi-cho, Toki, 509-5142 Japan.
authors: Hideaki
authors: H
authors: Tabuse
authors: Amir
authors: A
authors: Kalali
authors: Hideki
authors: H
authors: Azuma
authors: Norio
authors: N
authors: Ozaki
authors: Nakao
authors: N
authors: Iwata
authors: Hiroshi
authors: H
authors: Naitoh
authors: Teruhiko
authors: T
authors: Higuchi
authors: Shigenobu
authors: S
authors: Kanba
authors: Kunihiko
authors: K
authors: Shioe
authors: Tatsuo
authors: T
authors: Akechi
authors: Toshi A
authors: TA
authors: Furukawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D016544:Patient Simulation; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education; D011586:Psychology, Clinical / Q000193:education; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013337:Students, Medical