The Quick Mood Scale: development of a simple mood assessment scale for clinical pharmacology studies

This paper describes the initial steps in the development and validation of a mood scale designed specifically for use in clinical pharmacology studies. The Quick Mood Scale is a 12-item category scale which gives information on six factors of importance in the assessment of drug effects on the central nervous system (drowsiness, anxiety, depression, aggression, confusion and lack of coordination). In the first study normative data were obtained from administering the questionnaire by post to over 300 healthy subjects, from whom 261 valid responses were received. Respondents were also asked to complete the bipolar form of the Profile of Mood States (POMS). In the second study the test–retest reliabilities of items from the Quick Mood Scale and POMS were assessed in 32 healthy subjects tested at baseline, after 1 h, 24 h and 1 week. It was concluded that the Quick Mood Scale is potentially suitable for the assessment of drug effects in clinical pharmacology studies.