A rating scale for assessing dysphoria in youth

A rating scale (RSD) for children and adolescents was developed consisting of 12 items from the Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (Lefkowitz & Tesiny, 1980) converted to a Likert- type format for obtaining self- ratings or ratings by significant others of dysphoria. The measure was administered to 784 mothers whose children's modal age was 10 years. Longitudinal data were gathered for 124 of these mother- child pairs after an interval of 2 years and for 133 mother- child pairs after an interval of 4 years. At the second interval, 82 of the 133 children's fathers also contributed RSD data. Analyses of reliability and validity indicate that the RSD possesses adequate psychometric properties and may be used for purposes of research and screening, and, experimentally, for clinical assessment.A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Los Angeles, May, 1985. This research was supported in part by grant No. 326 from the New York State Health Research Council, by grant No. R01MH29788 from the National Institute of Mental Health, by a grant from the Ittleson Foundation to Monroe M. Lefkowitz, and by a Long Island University Research Faculty Award.