Measuring depressive symptomatology of patients referred to a behavioral medicine clinic: Concordance of self-report measures

We measured depressive symptomatology of 134 outpatient veterans treated within a Behavioral Medicine Clinic utilizing three reliable instruments with depression subscales: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), Derogatis Stress Profile (DSP), and Symptom Checklist 90—Revised (SCL-90-R). Results indicate that although the instruments correlate significantly, they differ in sensitivity to depression and are clinically discordant. The MMPI classified a substantially higher number of patients as depressed than either the DSP or SCL-90-R. The present study argues that the discrepancy in clinical concordance and sensitivity of the three depression scales has considerable implications for psychologists concerned with the assessment and treatment of depression.