A NEW SELF-RATING SCALE FOR DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY-STATES BASED ON THE COMPREHENSIVE PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL RATING-SCALE

Self-assessment scales have long been used in psychiatric research eve n if their validity has often been questioned, one reason being poor t he concordance of expert ratings. In clinical practice the use of rati ng scales is restricted, since they are considered to be time-consumin g and perhaps even to disrupt the clinician's rapport with the patient . In the present study, a self-assessment scale, the CPRS Self-rating Scale for Affective Syndromes (CPRS-S-A), was constructed by re-phrasi ng in a self-rating format 19 items from the original Comprehensive Ps ychopathological Rating Scale (CPRS) and covering depression, anxiety and obsessional symptoms. In a group of 30 patients with depression sy ndromes and anxiety syndromes, the CPRS-S-A and the original CPRS were both used on 2 occasions. The patient's Global Assessment of Function ing scores ranged from 30 to 76 (mean 58), which suggests a moderate s everity of illness, as does the fact that the majority were outpatient s. There was a high degree of concordance between the instruments for most items and for the scores on the subscales for both diagnostic gro ups (i.e., the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale and the Brief Anxiety Scale, which are both subscales drawn from the CPRS). The tim e taken to complete the CPRS-S-A varied from 5 to 30 min (mean 19 min for depressive and 16 min for anxiety patients on the first occasion, 13 min for both groups on the second), and the self-rating procedure w as readily accepted by both groups of patients. The CPRS-S-A would thu s seem to be a promising instrument for quantitative rating of symptom s in ambulatory patients, both in clinical practice and in research.