Response set on the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale.

Abstract

The Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) is a brief personality inventory designed to assess depression (Zung, 1965 ) . SDS scores are not significantly correlated with age, sex, intelligence, marital starus, financial starus, or educational level (Zung, 1967) , bur are with other inventories designed to measure depression such as the D scale of the MMPI (Zung, Richards, & Short, 1965) and the Depression Adjective Check List (Marone & Lubin, 1968) . The present authors found that Ss could fake bad on the SDS but could not significantly fake good (Mikesell & Calhoun, 1969) . Generally, response set may be defined as the tendency to respond in a particular way, almost independently of item content. The present srudy attempted to examine the SDS for the response set, effects. Order effects refer to Ss' tendency to respond to related items of a personality inventory in one way when the items are clustered (e.g., related items presented together) and in another way when these related items are not clustered (e.g., items presented in random order). For example, Greenberg and Frank (1965) found such response set operant in the Tennessee Self-concept Scale. The SDS is composed of items designed to assess three areas of depressive symptoms: pervasive affect, psychological equivalents, and physiological equivalents. The items for each of these three symptom areas are presented together rather than being presented in random order. Therefore, order effects would be demonstrated i f Ss responded one way to a random ordering of SDS items and in another way to the standard ordering of the SDS items. The present study was designed to assess the effect of the order of items on total scores on the SDS. Ss, who were 6 0 female high school seniors, were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group I (control) was administered the standard form of the SDS and Group I1 a form wherein the 20 items were arranged in random order. The raw scores on the SDS are converted into the SDS Index. Group I (standard order) obtained a mean score of 38.1 and an S D of 6.20. Group I1 (scrambled order) obtained a mean score of 40.70 and an S D of 7.68 ( t = 1.44, n.s.). Thus, there are no significant order effects on the SDS. Total scores obtained on the SDS appear not to be influenced by the standard clustering of items according to symptom categories, suggesting again (Mikesell & Calhoun, 1969; Zung, 1965, 1967) that the self-report inventory is relatively useful and reliable. REFERENCES GREENBERG, G. U., & FRANK, G. H. Response set in the Tennessee Department of Mental Health Self Concept Scale. Jorrrnal o f Clinical Psychology, 1965, 21, 287-288. MARONE, J . , & LUBIN, B. Relationship becween set 2 of the Depression Adjective Check List (DACL) and Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) . Psychological Reports, 1968, 22, 333-334. MIKESELL, R. H., & CALHOUN, L. G. Faking on the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale. Psychological Reports, 1969, 2 5 , 173-174. Z ~ G , W. W. K. A Self-rating Depression Scale. Archives o f General Psychiatry, 1965, 12, 63-70. ZUNG, W. W. K. Factors influencing the Self-rating Depression Scale. Archives o f General Psychiatry, 1967, 16, 543-547. ZUNG, W. W. K., RICHARDS, C. B., & SHORT, M. J. Self-rating Depression Scale in an outpatient c l~nic : further v a l ~ d a t ~ o n of the SDS. Archives o f General Psychiatry, 1965, 13, 508-515. Accepted December 2, 1969.