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Psychometric characteristics of ideational retardation in depressives
Author(s) -
Brébion G.,
Smith M. J.,
Allilaire J. F.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1995.tb01472.x
Subject(s) - psychomotor retardation , psychology , rating scale , psychometrics , psychomotor learning , rorschach test , clinical psychology , depression (economics) , developmental psychology , audiology , psychiatry , medicine , cognition , alternative medicine , pathology , economics , macroeconomics
In two studies we tested the assumption that slowing of ideation (the ideational counterpart of psychomotor retardation) reflects a dimension distinct from severity of depression. Specifically, we hypothesized that an objective measure of ideational retardation would be correlated with a psychomotor retardation rating scale but not with a depression severity rating scale. There were 29 in‐patients in Study 1 and 30 out‐patients in Study 2; all satisfied DSM‐III criteria for major depressive episode. Measurements of ideational retardation, and notably latency of response, were derived from patient responses to the Rorschach plates (Study 1) and to simplified non‐figurative line drawings (Study 2). As expected, results showed that latencies of response were not significantly correlated with depression severity scores on the Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating scale (r = .19 in Study 1, r = − .08 in Study 2), but were significantly correlated with the scores on the Salpétrière Retardation Rating scale (subscale for observable items, SRRSo) (r = .71, p < .0005 in Study 1; r = .55, p < .005, in Study 2).