A Short Depression Index for Women

Abstract

The CES-D is a well-known index of acute depressive symptoms experienced over a 7-day period that has been used in literally hundreds of studies. This article presents the psychometric derivation of 8- and 4-item screening versions of the CES-D for use in research with community-based samples. These short depressive symptom indices can be used in those instances where a brief assessment is needed for broad screening or research purposes. Using data from a heterogeneous community sample of 411 women, the 8-item CES-D was found to correlate .93 with the full 20-item CES-D while the 4-item CES-D was found to correlate .87 with the full CES-D. In a second sample of 83 women in a residential drug abuse program, the 8- and 4-item measures correlated .54 and .47, respectively, with the BPI Depression scale.