The Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD-R) is a screening test for depression and depressive disorder. The CESD-R measures symptoms defined by the American Psychiatric Association' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) for a major depressive episode.

You can take the test below, or from the CESD-R website here.

INSTRUCTIONS

This set of questions is related to how you feel or behaved in the past week. Using the scale below, write the number which best describes how often you felt or behaved this way during the past week.

0 - rarely or none of the time (less than one day)

1 - some or a little of the time (1-2 days)

2 - a moderate amount of the time (3-4days)

3 - most or all of the time (5-7 days)

BEGIN QUESTIONNAIRE

___1.  You were bothered by things that usually don’t bother you.

___2.  You did not feel like eating; your appetite was poor.

___3.  You felt that you could not shake off the blues even with help from your family and friends.

___4.  You felt that you were just as good as other people (X)

___5. You had trouble keeping your mind on what you were doing.

___6.  You felt depressed

___7. You felt that everything you did was an effort.

___8. You felt hopeful about the future (X)

___9. You thought your life had been a failure.

___10. You felt fearful.

___11.  Your sleep was restless.

___12. You were happy. (X)

___13.  You talked less than usual.

___14.  You felt lonely.

___15.  People were unfriendly.

___16.  You enjoyed life. (X)

___17. You had crying spells.

___18. You felt sad.

___19. You felt that people disliked you.

___20.  You could not get ‘going.’

 HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SCORE:

STEP 1:  Your scores on Items 4, 8, 12 and 16 (the ones marked with an X) should be ‘reverse scored’ - that is, if you gave yourself a 0, cross it out and change it to a 3; if you gave yourself a 1, change that to a 2; change a 2 to a 1; and change a 3 to a 0.

STEP 2: Using the changed scores for those four items, now add your scores for all of the items.

The lowest score you could possibly get is a 0 and the highest score is a 60. Psychologists use the cutoff score of 16 to determine if someone is depressed. How depressed depends on how high your score is. Depression can range from mild (a score of 16 - 20) to moderate (a score of 20 tp 25) to severe (a score of 26 to 60)

Please note: Your score may vary according to your mood. You might get different scores from week to week.

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