Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:53:19.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Leeds Scales for the Self-Assessment of Anxiety and Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

R. P. Snaith
Affiliation:
Stanley Roya Hospital, Wakefield
G. W. K. Bridge
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Leeds
Max Hamilton
Affiliation:
University of Leeds; Department of Psychiatry, 15 Hyde Terrace, Leeds 2

Summary

Self-rating scales are finding an increasing use in psychiatric work. Not only are they widely used in research, but they provide the clinician with a score indicating the patient's psychiatric state at any one time, and these scores if repeated throughout the duration of treatment may be considered to provide a continuing measure of the severity of the illness, as does a temperature chart in a febrile illness. Most scales could be improved by item analysis, and in this study the Wakefield Self-Assessment of Depression Inventory, with added items, was subjected to statistical analysis. It was found that valid scales could be constructed for the measurement of anxiety and of depression in general psychiatric disorder, as well as scales for the measurement of the severity of endogenous (primary) depression and of anxiety states. In addition, the derivation of a ‘diagnostic’ score was confirmed in a cross-validation study and may be found of use both in research and in clinical practice.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atoen, R. C. B. (1969) Measurement of feelings using the visual analogue scale. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 62, 989–96.Google Scholar
Atoen, R. C. B. & Zealley, A. K. (1970) The measurement of moods. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 4, 215–24.Google Scholar
Costello, C. G. & Gomrey, A. L. (1967) Scale for measuring depression and anxiety. Journal of Psychology, 66, 303–13.Google Scholar
Grown, S. & Crisp, A. H. (1966) A short clinical diagnostic self-rating scale for psychoneurotic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 917–23.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R., Lipman, R. S., Covi, L. & Rickels, K. (1972) Factorial invariance of symptom dimensions in anxious and depressive neuroses. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 659–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Downing, R. W. & Rickels, K. (1974) Mixed anxiety-depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 30, 312–20.Google Scholar
General Register Office (1968) A Glossary of Mental Disorders. Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1972) The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire, pp. 2634. London: O.U.P. Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1974) Psychiatric disorders. Lancet, ii, 1245–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kellner, R. (1972) Improvement criteria in drug trials with neurotic patients. Psychological Medicine, 2, 7381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kellner, R. & Sheffield, B. F. (1973) A self-rating scale for distress. Psychological Medicine, 3, 88101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, M. (1959) The assessment of anxiety states by rating. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 32, 50–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, M. (1967) Development of a rating scale for primary depressive illness. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 6, 278–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, M. (1969) Standardized assessment and recording of depressive symptoms. Psychiatria, Neurologia and Neurochirurgia, 72, 201–5.Google ScholarPubMed
Mendels, J. & Weinstein, N. (1972) The relationship between anxiety and depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 649–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snaith, R. P., Ahmed, S. N., Mehta, S. & Hamilton, M. (1971) The assessment of the severity of primary depressive illness. Psychological Medicine, 1, 143–9.Google Scholar
Snaith, R. P., & McCoubrie, M. (1974) Anti-hypertensive drugs and depression. Psychological Medicine, 4, 393–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zung, W. W. K. (1965) A self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, 12, 6370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zung, W. W. K. (1967) Factors influencing the self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, 16, 543–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.