Purpose: To assess evidence of depression

Age: 7-18 years

Time: 20-50 minutes

The Children’s Depression Scale (CDS) is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing and treating depression in young people across diverse cultures. The CDS covers two scales: Depression and Pleasure.

The CDS can be used by qualified psychologists, counsellors and medical practitioners.

Key Features

• Comprehensive Australian norms
• Two new questionnaires for teachers and health practitioners
• Includes a shortened scale of 50 items to use with children and their parents
• The revised report form provides an excellent means of gathering information from multiple informants, allowing users to summarise and compare responses of children and a variety of adult respondents.

In addition to the card sort for use with the child or young person, four separate questionnaires are also available.

CDS Questionnaires

Parent Questionnaire

Separate forms for boys and girls. Allows for others to report on the child's behaviour and feelings. It is intended for use with parents to yield another index of the child's depression or wellbeing.

Teacher Questionnaire

Allows for teachers' assessments of how a child is functioning. Teachers have the opportunity to observe children in a different social context, with awareness of the child's intellectual functioning as well as social interactions outside the family and with different groups of children.

Health Practitioner Questionnaire

Asks health practitioners a structured set of questions to assist in clarifying the presence and level of depression.