The Johns Hopkins Depression Scale: normative data and validation in child psychiatry patients

With a newly devised 38-item symptom checklist based upon DSM-III criteria for major affective disorder, normative data were obtained on 1,004 school children, aged 5 to 13 years. The items on the checklist were scored on a severity scale of 0 to 4 with a maximum score of 152. The average raw scores in this population was 31.2, SD +/- 2.4. Of 57 inpatients, 27 met DSM-III criteria for a major affective disorder and obtained mean raw scores of 66.8, SD +/- 13.4. The 30 nondepressed inpatients had scores of 36.4, SD +/- 5.3. The differences in the raw scores between the depressed inpatients and normal controls, and depressed and nondepressed inpatients were found to be statistically significant (p less than 0.01). The new checklist can serve as a potential screening instrument, is not time consuming, and has been standardized on a large normal control population for age and sex.