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Reliability and validity of a nurses' rating scale of depression
Author(s) -
DElia G.,
Raotma H.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1978.tb06893.x
Subject(s) - rating scale , psychology , construct validity , clinical psychology , depression (economics) , convergent validity , anxiety , psychogenic disease , reliability (semiconductor) , psychometrics , psychiatry , developmental psychology , power (physics) , physics , internal consistency , quantum mechanics , economics , macroeconomics
In order to test the reliability and the construct validity of a nurses' depression‐rating scale (NRS) patients with a depressive syndrome of endogenous or mixed endogenous‐psychogenic aetiology were assessed initially, during and after treatment, by NRS, doctors' rating scale ( Cronholm & Ottosson ) and self‐rating ( Zung ). Global ratings were also made. The inter‐rater reliability of the NRS was 0.41–0.90 for the symptoms, 0.90 for the depression‐anxiety syndrome, 0.79 for the retardation syndrome and 0.89 for the total depressive syndrome. As indicators of construct validity three criteria were used: treatment criterion (to discriminate between untreated and treated patients), group difference criterion (to discriminate between groups of treated patients), and convergent validity (correlation to other depression scales). Further, the degree of the discriminating ability, the sensitivity of the scale, was examined. The NRS discriminated well between untreated and ECT treated patients and satisfactorily between recovered and much improved patients. The correlations between NRS and doctors' ratings were positive and significant, although not very high. They indicate that nurses' rating and doctors' rating probably measure partly different aspects of the depressive symptomatology. The simultaneous use of both ratings may thus give a more complete estimate of depression. Doctors' rating was superior to nurses' rating in sensitivity and showed somewhat higher reliability. The results do not justify the replacement of doctors' rating by other ratings. Self‐rating appeared to be of little value as an additional assessment.