Psychology

What is it
This is a commonly asked question in the world of psychology.  Before defining the scale, it is good to define the term depression. Depression is the condition where by one may finds themselves working under very low and unproductive rates resulting from  the environmental factors or mostly form within the persons state of health or mind.  If you are not settled at mind, then you cannot be productive enough.  When one is psychologically disturbed, or they may be mentally or physically unsettled, then they can be said to be depressed depending on the levels of dissatisfaction and dysfunction of their operations.
 
Depression scale on the other hand is defined as the psychometric measures or the gauges used to detect the levels of depression, anxiety or fear in a person.  These scales have been researched on and designed by many psychiatrists. For example, Hamilton depression rating scale that is a set of 21 questions used by clinical officer to diagnose any abnormalities and levels of depression in different ages and races of people. These collections of questions have been keenly developed through the interaction with patients under varied levels of depression at different environments and conditions. The symptom of the disorder found on such patients are tested to show the level of depression and the necessary assistance administered.  Some of the symptoms that are used in the detection of the level of depression include loss of weight, increased anxiety, the feeling of vomiting, sleepiness or even the lack of rest, low mood levels and the ease with which one gets irritated (Ellison, Verma, 2003). In addition to that, the Zung Self Rated Depression scale is a similar set of 20 diagnosis questions that help one to measure the depression levels through self testing procedure.

History and philosophy of the depression scale in psychology
The study of depression scales was triggered by the increase in the number of mentally depressed persons in hospitals.  Another reason for the development of these scale by many researchers was to find a solution for traumatic and post traumatic stress that faced many people after  civil wars, attacks by raids, theft attacks, and sometimes the heredity characteristics that faced many societies during the time of research. The tendency of  people to sleep walk, madness attacks, tension development due to health conditions like the cardiac attacks, diabetes, dieting and malfunctioning  body organs were a source of stress that later developed to depression and this prompted the development of depression test mechanisms hence the scales (Jill, Steve, 2005).

Unfortunately, this study has faced challenges over the years in which case after treatment, there has been a tendency for the patients to go back to the former state making the anti-depression operations ineffective. The relapse effect found a large number of patients and was hitch point to further research and development of better test mechanisms than the ones that existed before. For this reason, medical therapists have not had an easy time managing stress or depression related disorders.

Depression however can be managed by first identifying the cause and the administering the appropriate therapy. For instance, activities like drug abuse, involvement in risky sexual behavior and anxiety which lead to depression could be countered by the administration of counseling after the level of depression is tested.

According to Radloff 1977, the work of studying epidemiology of depression has been successfully done by the Center for Epidemiology Studies Depression. The first encounter with surveys on mental health of communities was in 1970 and health national study in 1981. The center has been able to work on nutrition surveys and their examinations.  The better step taken towards solving mental health or disorders as in depression is the involvement of telephone solutions to depression and later on the self administered depression solutions. The center considers their scale to be widely used so far (John, 1995). This scale is abbreviated as CESD and is administered on self diagnosis.

Apart from the self diagnosis scales by CESD, patients can always be taken through a diagnosis by a medical officer if they were not able to carry out the diagnosis on themselves.  It is an advancement from earlier inventions by Zung 1965, Beck 1961, Rsakin 1967 and MMPI 1960. Birleson 1978, researched on depression scale for children aged between 8 and 14 year, in which it was realized that majority of these children were depressed from rejection in families from which they came, lack of parental care, or poverty stricken environments.  Hamilton in 1960 developed his depression test scale whose objective was to measure the severity of depression in children and mature people for already identified cases of depression.  After the level of depression is detected, then a psychotropic therapy and treatment is administered on the client (Keen, 2002). Hamilton further invented an inventory for depression called the, HDI Hamiltons Depression Inventory scale. Among other discoveries, his depression scale has been in use for more than 40 years.

Beck in 1961 came up with a depression scale which was a sign of professional development in the world of medicine particularly health care. The current design of this scale is fit for people whose age is thirteen year and above. This one deals mostly with cases of desperation related to hopelessness, feeling of guilt, self rejection and irritable behaviors. The set has been revised severally with the most recent being in 1996. The tool is called BDI- Beck Depression Inventory scale and is highly used in the assessment of health progress by both researchers and professionals in Health care.
 
The scale surveys on the functioning of mind, mood variations and personal interactions with others and environment. In the recent past, studies have been directed towards the validation of the CESD scale to test on its competence in the identifications of the symptoms of depression on a wider variety of environments and causes such as homelessness, flood, devastating environmental situations, hunger and starvation, and populationcommunity factors.

The scale is also being tested on its effectiveness along gender disparities and a wide range of ages.  Since CESD is a set of questions written down on an original language, it has already been translated to different languages in order to reach many persons all over the world. The scale has further been revised to reflect the current state of psychiatric problems which include weight fluctuation and problems in sleep and dysphoria. The final CESD scale now includes sleep disorders, cardiac problems and the prediction of when the disorder sets in.  The original scale generated by CESD identified high risks of depression in a wide population some of which were not necessarily clinical problems.  There are also suitable quotations that can aid in the diagnosis of suicide related cases (Ainsworth, 2000).  There are a number of identified propositions to appropriate interview questions related to population surveys.  This document has further involved specialists at different levels of medicine and human health who together have managed to give an appropriate advisory measure to the compilation of the final text option, the test diagnosis mechanism.   So far, it is the best quality of analysis that is applied for testing.

The depression scales can be used to measure various forms of depression.  These may include disorders in anxiety levels, panic, manic, fatigue, hopelessness, the feeling of guilt, self rejection or feeling disappointed and fear among the young and adults. Sometimes, students for example, have found themselves in tension when in class or during exam preparations, while the working class were at a time discouraged and had low a performance at various work environments and would therefore feel as if they were sick only to realize that they were depressed and could only get away with it by performing the self depression diagnosis tests.  It is unfortunate that even though the scales exist, many people have not come across them not until when they visit the hospitals for disorder corrections.  Majority of the mentally disturbed have only been able to recover after these tests were performed by a medical officer who can administer the therapy (John, 1995).  Patients of high blood pressure, traumatized or grieved persons are common beneficiaries of the scales of depression.
Basically, the CESD test tool is the most effective for self diagnosis of depression levels at various ages ranging from children to the aged.  It has an emphasis on primary health empowerment. Depression scales are therefore important.