The use of rating scales exemplified by a comparison of the Hamilton and the Bech‐Rafaelsen Melancholia Scale

A psychiatric rating scale is a method directed towards standardization of the recording of clinical data. Depending on the various levels of information such scales can be divided into questionnaires, observer scales and interviewing or case‐recording scales. The most commonly used observer scale is the Hamilton Depression Scale (HDS) which consists of 17 items or symptoms. The sum of the scores of each item is intended to give the rating for the patient's state. However, our previous work with the HDS has shown that the scale is not a one‐dimensioned measure of the depressive state. Our statistical evaluation of summing the HDS‐items will include both homogeneity (the consistency of a scale across items) and transferability (the consistency of a scale across patients). On this background the construction of our own depression scale will be discussed.