Home › Scale Atlas › Psychology: Mental Health › Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)
Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)
Psychology: Mental HealthReliability: alpha 0.85–0.903 sample items
About this scale
A 20-item self-report measure of depressive symptoms in the general population, designed for community-based screening rather than clinical diagnosis. Symptoms over the past week, rated 0–3.
Sample item(s)
“I was bothered by things that usually don't bother me”
“I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing”
“I felt depressed”
Reliability
Reported internal consistency: alpha 0.85–0.90. As a rule of thumb, Cronbach’s α ≥ .70 is considered acceptable, ≥ .80 good, and ≥ .90 excellent for established measures.
Notes
Free for academic use. CES-D-10 short form (Andresen 1994) is widely used.
Source & citation
Radloff, L. S. (1977): The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 385–401.
Source. Scale details are summarised from the publication cited above. Always consult the original source for the full item set, scoring, and permission to use.
Use it in your research
Need to check the reliability or psychometrics of this scale in your own data? Use the free DrAIStudio research tools:
Cronbach’s alpha calculator
All statistical calculators
Search the full Scale Atlas
Academic writing humanizer