Comparison between clinician-rated and self-reported depressive symptoms in Italian psychiatric patients

The Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology is a new scale for measuring depressive symptoms. The reliability, validity and correlations between self-report and clinician-rated versions of the scale were examined in 86 Italian psychiatric patients. Results confirmed the validity and internal consistency of the scales. Self-ratings and clinician ratings were highly correlated. Total score on the self-rating scale was generally higher than the corresponding clinician scale score. Item analysis revealed that most items were rated slightly higher by self-report, with the items contributing most to this discrepancy being psychomotor agitation and retardation, self-outlook, and irritable mood. Both quality of mood and psychomotor agitation were more frequently endorsed by self-report than by clinician rating.