Agreement between physicians' and patients' ratings on the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale

Self-rating scales developed for monitoring depression severity are potentially informative and cost effective tools. There is an increasing tendency to use the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and the self-rating version (MADRS-S) interchangeably.

400 patients with major depressive disorder were included. Concordance between patient and physician ratings was measured by means of repeated MADRS and MADRS-S ratings during a six-month drug trial and one-year follow-up.

Overall scores from patients and physicians show the same trends and both are sensitive to improvements. Our results, however, show only moderate to good agreement between patient and physician ratings. Intraclass coefficients ranged from 0.47 to 0.75 with highest agreement at week 8.

Generalizability is restricted to outpatients in general practice with moderate to severe depression. MADRS-S and MADRS scale definitions are similar but not identical concerning language and are scaled differently, 0-6 vs. 0-3, respectively, which may have influenced the results. The exclusion criteria restricted the range of values for the item Suicidal thoughts/Zest for life, which may have reduced the correlations.

MADRS-S is a suitable tool for following patients' symptoms on a regular basis over time and may also be used to compensate for bias in physicians' ratings in drug trials.