Three widely used measures of depression, the Beck Depression Inventory, Zung Self-rating Depression Scale, and Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, were used in an analysis of treatment effects over time. Results were not consistent with those of an earlier meta-analysis of Lambert, Hatch, Kingston, and Edwards in 1986. Present findings indicate that the Zung's self-rating is more likely to show early treatment gains while Beck's inventory shows larger gains over a longer time. Scores on the Hamilton Rating fall between the other two. These results indicate that research should be focused on the differences among these scales.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Psychiatric Association. (1987) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. (3rd ed. rev.) Washington, DC: Author.
2.
BeckA. T.WardC. H.MendelsonM.MockJ.ErbaughJ. (1961) An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561–571.
3.
HamiltonM. (1960) A rating scale for depression. Joumal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 23, 56–62.
4.
LambertM. J.HatchD. R.KingstonM. D.EdwardsB. C. (1986) Zung, Beck, and Hamilton rating scales as measures of treatment outcome: a meta-analytic comparison. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 54–59.
5.
MoranP. W.LambertM. J. (1983) A review of current assessment tools for monitoring changes in depression. In LambertM. J.ChristensenE. R.DeJulioS. S. (Eds.), The measurement of psychotherapy outcome in research and evaluation. New York: Wiley. Pp. 263–303.
6.
SharelsonR. J. (1981) Statistical reasoning for the behavioral sciences. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
7.
ZungW. W. K. (1965) A self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, 12, 63–70.
