Abstract
Cognitive assessment of depression is not well advanced and the evidence for the validity and reliability of measures is incomplete. This study examined two cognitive assessments of depression-the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) and the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS). There were two major objectives of this study. The first objective was to examine the ability of these two measures of cognitions to discriminate depressive symptomatology within a variety of sample populations-university undergraduate students, medical and psychiatric outpatients, and acute psychiatric inpatients. The second objective was to examine the ability of the ATQ and DAS succesfully to classify depressed and nondepressed patients. The results of this study suggest that the ATQ is a sensitive and specific measure of depression. Nonspecificity to the ATQ, however, was demonstrated in the substance abuse disorder group and the personality disorder group. In contrast, the DAS, although correlated with depressive symptomatology, was not found to be specific to depression.
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Part of this project is supported by a Special Project Grant from the University of Queensland to Dr. Oei.
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Hill, C.V., Oei, T.P.S. & Hill, M.A. An empirical investigation of the specificity and sensitivity of the automatic thoughts questionnaire and dysfunctional attitudes scale. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 11, 291–311 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00961529
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00961529