We present here a new instrument of measurement for systematic biases in patient response style when evaluating severity of depression, in the form of a self-rated questionnaire derived from the MMPI containing 37 items rating depressive severity (DSS), 15 items of the L scale, 27 items of the K scale, and 51 items of the F scale, making a total of 130 yes-no items. The scores of these 4 scales allow an estimation not only of depressive severity, but also of the attitude of the subject towards his own style of symptom reporting: “defense” and desire to appear “normal”, or on the contrary tendency towards exaggeration. In a population of 66 depressives, this instrument was correlated with the MADRS depression rating scale (P < 0.0001), which shows its sensitivity to depressive severity. The F scale and Gough’s index (F-K) were also shown to be correlated with MADRS scores. This self-rated questionnaire constitutes a clinical instrument that is simple and practical both to administer and to correct.
