Development of a Critical Item Scale for the Depression Adjective Check Lists

A critical item scale for the Depression Adjective Check Lists was developed on two psychiatric patient samples and a college student sample. Items that differentiated the nondepressed from the severely depressed subgroup of a community mental health center were cross-validated in the other two samples. A four-adjective Critical Item Scale thereby was constructed for each list of Set 2 (E, F, G) of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.