Performance of the CES‐D and its Short Forms in Screening Suicidality and Hopelessness in the Community

Abstract

A measurement scale should be short and quick to complete if it is to be practically useful. Drawing on data from a community-based survey of 2,178 people in Hong Kong, we compared five short forms (5- to 10-item) and the original version (20-item) of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) in predicting suicidal attempts and suicidal thoughts. Short forms with as few as nine items performed in ways very similar to the full version; a version with only five items had a detectable difference from the full version. Sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values in differentiating people with and without suicidal thought or attempt change almost linearly with the cut-offs.

Quantitative Adjustment of the Influence of Depression on the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand (DASH) Questionnaire

“…The DASH score was then adjusted for the influence of Depression for women and men using ordinary least-squares regression and subtracting the product of the regression coefficient and the CES-D score from the raw DASH score. The average DASH score was 24 points (SD, 19; range, 0-91), and the average CES-D score was 10 points (SD,8; range,. Fourteen of the 30 items of the DASH demonstrated correlation greater than r=0.20.…”

Depression and Work Family Conflict Among Corrections Officers

“…Depressive symptoms were assessed by using the 10-item (short form) CES-D. 49 This version is one of several short forms of the CES-D that have good accuracy and perform similar to the full 20-item CES-D. 50 This scale assessed the frequency of depressive symptoms experienced during the last week by using a four-point response scale (all of the time, occasionally, some or a little of the time, rarely or none of the time). These options were scored by a weighted system ranging from zero to three.…”

Positive emotion following spousal bereavement: Desirable or pathological?

“…The 11-item short form used here has produced an alpha of 0.81 in prior research and correlated 0.95 with the full 20-item scale (Kohout, Berkman, Evans, & Cornoni-Huntley, 1993). CES-D short forms are associated with both suicidal thoughts and a history of suicide attempts (Cheung, Liu, & Yip, 2007). This scale was administered at the pre-loss interview, and 6-, 18-, and 48-months post-loss.…”