[Validation of a new mood questionnaire on healthy sample]

Depression is a frequent, wide spectrum disease causing substantial suffering. Quantitative tools for measuring depression are rather important both at the clinical and non-clinical state. BDI (Beck Depression Inventory) the HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and the BHS (Beck Hopelessness Scale) are used both in clinical practice and research. Primary aim of these questionnaires is the diagnosis of clinical depression, however, screening for less severe stages of depression, and realization of predisposition to depression is also important. Based on results from recent twin-studies genetic factors of depression are significant. Moreover, discovering genetic risk factors of depression is a challenging task of psychogenetic association studies. Creating new endophenotypes, those units of our phenotypic makeup which can be objectively measured and are linked to certain genetic components, is an important step in completion of this challenge. The primary goal of the present study was to characterize predisposition to depression with endophenotypes suitable for genetic association analysis. To achieve this goal 170 participants filled out the BDI and HADS questionnaires in the first stage of the study (99 were diagnosed with clinical depression, and 71 were healthy adults). Psychometric properties of these questionnaires were assessed, reliability of the Hungarian version of both scales proved to be satisfactory. Using items from these tools we derived a common factor structure in order to create a new, short measure (the DS1K) of the depression construct ready to be used as endophenotype in psychogenetic association studies. Usability of the DS1K was assessed based on data from 144 healthy adults. The measure proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach-alpha = 0.88) and valid (correlation with the BDI and HADS scales were high and significant).