Measurement of anhedonia

Instruments developed to measure anhedonia are reviewed and their psychometric properties and conceptual framework discussed. Most instruments were designed considering anhedonia to be a symptom either of schizophrenia or of depression. Only the Physical and Social Anhedonia Scales of Chapman et al, designed to measure a lifelong pleasure deficiency, considered to be related to schizophrenia, and, to a lesser extent, the Pleasure Scale of Fawcett et al, designed to evaluate a state dependent deficit, considered to identify a subtype of depression, have been psychometrically extensively investigated. Since we were interested in studying anhedonia in depression, we made a Dutch translation of the Fawcett-Clark Pleasure Scale and report here on the psychometric properties of this translated version. Using the Rasch model for testing the homogeneity and transferability of the scale, we demonstrated that the original scale did not fit the model. A subscale of 14 items was constructed which did.