[Discrepancy between clinical depression and psychometric depression].

Abstract

Convergencies and discordances among three different strategies for the psychometric evaluation of depressively (self-report inventories, objective or external questionnaires, and verbal content analysis) are discussed. Twenty-one inpatients with a major depressive disorder, and 21 inpatients with a non-endogenous depression were assessed with different instruments. While an external assessment of depressiveness coincided with both clinical and diagnostical criteria, depressiveness as assessed with self-report inventories, and verbal content showed lesser scores among patients with endogenous depression (n-21): Such patients assessed themselves as "less depressive" than patients with dysthymic disorder (n-21), even when admitted at a mental hospital. Results suggest that any assessment--as far as endogenous depression is concerned--should be basically performed by means of external evaluation questionnaires.