CES-DC

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) is a freely available, widely-used, 20-item self-report screening questionnaire measure of current depressive symptoms among healthy and unwell children and adolescents aged 8-17 years.^16,17 Convergent validity of the CES-DC with other depression inventories for children and young people has been demonstrated. ¹⁷ Items inquire about symptoms occurring over the pastweek. The CES-DC has a four-factor structure ¹⁸ : depressed affect (7 items), somatic complaints (7 items), positive affect (4 items), and interpersonal problems (2 items). Responses are based on a four-point Likert Scale from 0-3 (0= “not at all”, 1= “a little”, 2 = “some”, 3= “a lot”). Four of the items (the positive affect domain) are phrased positively e.g. “I was happy” and are thus scored in reverse order(3 = “not at all” 2 = “a little”, 1 = “some”, 0 = “a lot”).The total score range is 0-60 and higher total scores reflect a greater level of self-reported depressive symptoms. Initial validation of the CES-DCas a screening measure for Major Depressive Disorder has suggested the cut-point score of 15 or greater as suggestive of potentially clinically significant depressive symptoms among children and adolescents in the community. ¹⁶