The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HDRS) was developed to assess the severity of depression symptoms for patients diagnosed with affective disorder with depressive tendencies (Hamilton 1960). HDRS can be used to quantify the results following a structured interview to identify depressive symptoms. The scale is widely used in the clinical field across age groups and has good cross-cultural validity.
In addition to HDRS, the Structured Interview Guide (SIGH-D) was developed to standardize the administration of the HDRS (Williams 1988). In the early days, the validity of the HDRS was questioned as clinicians conduct the interview in their own manner resulting in substantial variation in the interpretation of interview contents. This was ameliorated by conducting joint interviews, where one clinician interviews and rate and another clinician observes the interview and provides ratings concurrently. The scores are then combined for the assessment of.
