Some items on the original BDI had more than one statement marked with the same score. Higher total scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms. The standard cut-off scores were as follows: When the test is scored, a value of 0 to 3 is assigned for each answer and then the total score is compared to a key to determine the depression's severity. (3) I am so sad or unhappy that I can't stand it.(2) I am sad all the time and I can't snap out of it.Each question had a set of at least four possible responses, ranging in intensity. The original BDI, first published in 1961, consisted of twenty-one questions about how the subject has been feeling in the last week. The view of depression as sustained by intrusive negative cognitions has had particular application in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to challenge and neutralize them through techniques such as cognitive restructuring. The development of the BDI reflects that in its structure, with items such as 'I have lost all of my interest in other people' to reflect the world, 'I feel discouraged about the future' to reflect the future, and 'I blame myself for everything bad that happens' to reflect the self. The student has negative thoughts about his self, as he may feel he does not deserve to be in college.The student has negative thoughts about his future because he thinks he may not pass the class.The student has negative thoughts about the world, so he may come to believe he does not enjoy the class.In his view, it was the case that these cognitions caused depression, rather than being generated by depression.īeck developed a triad of negative cognitions about the world, the future, and the self, which play a major role in depression.Īn example of the triad in action taken from Brown (1995) is the case of a student obtaining poor exam results: īeck drew attention to the importance of 'negative cognitions' described as sustained, inaccurate, and often intrusive negative thoughts about the self. Development and history Īccording to Beck's publisher, 'When Beck began studying depression in the 1950s, the prevailing psychoanalytic theory attributed the syndrome to inverted hostility against the self.' By contrast, the BDI was developed in a novel way for its time by collating patients' verbatim descriptions of their symptoms and then using these to structure a scale which could reflect the intensity or severity of a given symptom. The BDI was used as a model for the development of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), first published in 1979 by clinical psychologist Maria Kovacs. The BDI is widely used as an assessment tool by health care professionals and researchers in a variety of settings. There are three versions of the BDI-the original BDI, first published in 1961 and later revised in 1978 as the BDI-1A, and the BDI-II, published in 1996. In its current version, the BDI-II is designed for individuals aged 13 and over, and is composed of items relating to symptoms of depression such as hopelessness and irritability, cognitions such as guilt or feelings of being punished, as well as physical symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss, and lack of interest in sex. Its development marked a shift among mental health professionals, who had until then, viewed depression from a psychodynamic perspective, instead of it being rooted in the patient's own thoughts. Beck, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory, one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of depression. The Beck Depression Inventory ( BDI, BDI-1A, BDI-II), created by Aaron T.

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