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The assessment and measurement of the mental state in patients suffering from a depressive illness is important both in clinical psychiatry and in research. Clinical assessment by an experienced psychiatrist, even when it is quantified on the basis of a rating scale (e.g. Hamilton's Rating Scale for Depression) has the disadvantage of being dependent on the skill of the rater and on his clinical bias. These drawbacks make it somewhat difficult to compare meaningfully results obtained in different investigations.
Metcalfe et al. (Mon,) studied this question.