Assessment of depression in mentally retarded adolescents

The performance of 25 mentally retarded and 25 normal IQ adolescents was investigated on self-report and informant versions of three childhood depression measures. These measures included the Children's Depression Inventory, the Bellevue Index of Depression, and the Reynolds Child Depression Scale. Adolescents with mild to severe levels of mental retardation were studied. Strong correlations between total scores of measures were found. Analyses of variance comparing mentally retarded and intellectually average adolescents differed significantly only on the Bellevue Index of Depression. Finally, the relationship between self-report and informant versions of these measures were correlated, with mixed results. Implications for the use of these scales in assessing depression of mentally retarded adolescents are discussed.