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Measuring patient response biases by means of a new self-rated questionnaire evaluating severity of depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

J Brébion ,
M Smith  and
JF Allilaire
J Brébion
Affiliation:
Hôpital de la Salpétrière, 47 bd de l’Hôpital, 75013, Paris
M Smith*
Affiliation:
Hôpital de la Salpétrière, 47 bd de l’Hôpital, 75013, Paris
JF Allilaire
Affiliation:
Hôpital de la Salpétrière, 47 bd de l’Hôpital, 75013, Paris
*
*Correspondence and reprints: Service du Pr Widlöcher, Hôpital de la Salpétrière, 47 bd de l’Hôpital, 75651, Paris Cedex 13, France
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Summary

We present here a new instrument of measurement for systematic biases in patient response style when evaluating severity of depression, in the form of a self-rated questionnaire derived from the MMPI containing 37 items rating depressive severity (DSS), 15 items of the L scale, 27 items of the K scale, and 51 items of the F scale, making a total of 130 yes-no items. The scores of these 4 scales allow an estimation not only of depressive severity, but also of the attitude of the subject towards his own style of symptom reporting: “defense” and desire to appear “normal”, or on the contrary tendency towards exaggeration. In a population of 66 depressives, this instrument was correlated with the MADRS depression rating scale (P < 0.0001), which shows its sensitivity to depressive severity. The F scale and Gough’s index (F-K) were also shown to be correlated with MADRS scores. This self-rated questionnaire constitutes a clinical instrument that is simple and practical both to administer and to correct.

Keywords

auto-questionnairedepressionpsychometryresponse
Type
Original article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , 1991 , pp. 187 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier, Paris 1991

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