Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) is self report depression scale that is widely used to test student in the age of 7 to 17 years of age. This self report helps to assess the affective, cognitive or the behavioural characters of depression. The Children’s Depression Inventory has become popular over the recent years and is extensively used in clinical or in research settings. This self report takes only about 15 minutes.
The Children’s Depression Inventory comprises of 27 items, each having three choices. The student is asked to choose the options that would suit them best. The choice should be pertaining to the details of the behaviour or mood in the past two weeks. The test should take only less than 15 minutes. The parent and teacher are also requested to fill in respective forms to help assess the overall behaviour of the child both at home and at school. The Children’s Depression Inventory provides the overall score of the child’s negative mood, Anhedonia, Interpersonal Problems, Ineffectiveness and negative self-esteem. This self report helps to find if natural treatments for depression would be efficient. They are proved to be very effective and are also cost effective. They can be used in an emergency screening test of depression. It is found from the report that agitated depression is found in most cases.