Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression

The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), also called the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), abbreviated HAM-D, is a multiple item questionnaire used to provide an indication of depression, and as a guide to evaluate recovery. Max Hamilton originally published the scale in 1960 and revised it in 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1980. The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), also called the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), abbreviated HAM-D, is a multiple item questionnaire used to provide an indication of depression, and as a guide to evaluate recovery. Max Hamilton originally published the scale in 1960 and revised it in 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1980. The HRSD is a non-self-report clinician-rated scale which can measure dysphoric mood including abnormal insomnia, feelings of hopelessness, a tendency to weep, guilty illusion, suicidal thoughts, anhedonia, psychomotor retardation, restlessness, psychosomatic anxiety, somatic symptoms (pervasive fatigue, loss of sexual drive, sometimes hypochondria) and weight loss in clinical practice, although recently some suggests substitution of proxy sleep disturbance with sleep disorder diagnosis for older people. An antidepressant may show statistical efficacy even when thoughts of suicide increase but sleep is improved, or for that matter, an antidepressant that as a side effect increase sexual and gastrointestinal symptom ratings may register as being less effective in treating the depression itself than it actually is. Hamilton maintained that his scale should not be used as a diagnostic instrument, because there is possibility of his psychosomatic anxiety scale blurring boundary between agitation and anxiety although some melacholic depressive subtype does so.