Millions of people suffer from depression. Once you know you have depression, it’s time to seek treatment. You doctor can diagnose your depression and recommend a course of treatment and in many cases, diagnosing your depression can involve determining just how severe your depression really is. There are many levels of depression and how your doctor chooses to treat your symptoms will be based on how severe your depression is. One of the methods doctors can use to discover the severity level of a patient’s depression is the Beck Depression Inventory. Your doctor may use the Beck Depression Inventory when she determines the severity of your depression.
The Beck Depression Inventory
Dr. Aaron T. Beck created the Beck Depression Inventory as a way for patients to self-rate the severity of their depression as it is rooted in the patient’s own thoughts. The Beck Depression Inventory was first published in 1961 as a series of twenty-one questions. The patient ranked their feelings and thoughts on a scale of intensity with answers being given a point value that correlated to a score. The score rated the patient as not depressed, mildly to moderately depressed, moderately to severely depressed, or severely depressed.
Over the years, the test was refined twice and its final form was published in 1996. This final test still has twenty-one questions that require the patient to rank their feelings and thoughts by intensity, but the scoring is a bit different. Now the ratings put patients into categories as minimally depressed, mildly depressed, moderately depressed, and severely depressed.
Two Factors in Depression
The 1996 Beck Depression Inventory also indicates that there are two factors in depression – the affective component which is the mood or emotional component, and the physical or “somatic” component such as appetite or sleeping habits. The affective component is made up of eight topics: pessimism, past failures, guilty feelings, punishment feelings, self-dislike, self-criticalness, suicidal thoughts or wishes, and worthlessness. The physical component is made up of thirteen topics: sadness, loss of pleasure, crying, agitation, loss of interest, indecisiveness, loss of energy, change in sleep patterns, irritability, change in appetite, concentration difficulties, tiredness and/or fatigue, and loss of interest in sex. Either of these two components can be the primary cause of a person’s depression and the 1996 Beck Depression Inventory divides the questions into two groups so that your doctor can determine whether the underlying cause of your depression is affective or physical.
Sample Questions
The Beck Depression Inventory is laid out with each of the twenty-one topics listed followed by four ranking statements. The patient is asked to pick the ranking statement that best reflects how they feel concerning that topic and there is a point value assigned to that ranking statement that the doctor then uses to determine the final score. The following is an example of what a couple of the topics look like. The first topic is an affective topic and the second topic is a physical topic. The doctor will be able to tell by the overall scores in both component areas whether the patient’s depression is affective or physical in origin.
Pessimism
____I'm not discouraged about my future.
____I feel more discouraged about my future than I used to be.
____I do not expect things to work out for me.
____I feel my future is hopeless and will only get worse.
Loss of Energy
____I have as much energy as ever.
____I have less energy than I used to have.
____I don't have enough energy to do very much.
____I don't have enough energy to do anything.
Getting Treatment
Once your doctor has scored your Beck Depression Inventory and determined how severe your depression is and where its origins lie, then she can work with you to design an effective treatment plan. This may involve antidepressants or other drug therapy and you may also have talk therapy sessions with a mental health professional. Whatever treatment plan you use, you will find that depression is something that can be treated and you can feel better.
The Beck Depression Inventory
Dr. Aaron T. Beck created the Beck Depression Inventory as a way for patients to self-rate the severity of their depression as it is rooted in the patient’s own thoughts. The Beck Depression Inventory was first published in 1961 as a series of twenty-one questions. The patient ranked their feelings and thoughts on a scale of intensity with answers being given a point value that correlated to a score. The score rated the patient as not depressed, mildly to moderately depressed, moderately to severely depressed, or severely depressed.
Over the years, the test was refined twice and its final form was published in 1996. This final test still has twenty-one questions that require the patient to rank their feelings and thoughts by intensity, but the scoring is a bit different. Now the ratings put patients into categories as minimally depressed, mildly depressed, moderately depressed, and severely depressed.
Two Factors in Depression
The 1996 Beck Depression Inventory also indicates that there are two factors in depression – the affective component which is the mood or emotional component, and the physical or “somatic” component such as appetite or sleeping habits. The affective component is made up of eight topics: pessimism, past failures, guilty feelings, punishment feelings, self-dislike, self-criticalness, suicidal thoughts or wishes, and worthlessness. The physical component is made up of thirteen topics: sadness, loss of pleasure, crying, agitation, loss of interest, indecisiveness, loss of energy, change in sleep patterns, irritability, change in appetite, concentration difficulties, tiredness and/or fatigue, and loss of interest in sex. Either of these two components can be the primary cause of a person’s depression and the 1996 Beck Depression Inventory divides the questions into two groups so that your doctor can determine whether the underlying cause of your depression is affective or physical.
Sample Questions
The Beck Depression Inventory is laid out with each of the twenty-one topics listed followed by four ranking statements. The patient is asked to pick the ranking statement that best reflects how they feel concerning that topic and there is a point value assigned to that ranking statement that the doctor then uses to determine the final score. The following is an example of what a couple of the topics look like. The first topic is an affective topic and the second topic is a physical topic. The doctor will be able to tell by the overall scores in both component areas whether the patient’s depression is affective or physical in origin.
Pessimism
____I'm not discouraged about my future.
____I feel more discouraged about my future than I used to be.
____I do not expect things to work out for me.
____I feel my future is hopeless and will only get worse.
Loss of Energy
____I have as much energy as ever.
____I have less energy than I used to have.
____I don't have enough energy to do very much.
____I don't have enough energy to do anything.
Getting Treatment
Once your doctor has scored your Beck Depression Inventory and determined how severe your depression is and where its origins lie, then she can work with you to design an effective treatment plan. This may involve antidepressants or other drug therapy and you may also have talk therapy sessions with a mental health professional. Whatever treatment plan you use, you will find that depression is something that can be treated and you can feel better.
