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Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology pp 1646–1649Cite as

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale

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Synonyms

HAM-D; HAMD, Hamilton rating scale for depression; HDRS; HRSD

Description

The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) is a widely used, semistructured interview that assists in assessing the presence and severity of depressive symptoms (Hamilton 1960). More than 20 published versions of the HAM-D exist (Bagby et al. 2004), with the most commonly used versions containing 17–21 items. Administration and scoring take approximately 20–30 min.

The original version contained 21 items, assessing depressive symptoms experienced in the past week such as depressed mood, guilt, psychomotor retardation, insomnia, somatic symptoms, weight loss, and suicide. As the scale was based on earlier conceptualizations of depressive disorders, it also includes items outside of current conceptualizations (per DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association 1994) of depressive disorders, including somatic anxiety and hypochondriasis. For the same reason, atypical depressive symptoms included in the DSM-IV,...

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References and Readings

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Dawn M. Ehde

Authors
  1. Dawn M. Ehde
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Correspondence to Dawn M. Ehde .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Jeffrey S. Kreutzer

  2. Kessler Foundation, Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ, USA

    John DeLuca

  3. Independent Practice, Wynnewood, PA, USA

    Bruce Caplan

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Ehde, D.M. (2018). Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1989

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