Posted by SLS on April 29, 2013, at 8:00:24
In reply to Re: 1-10 » SLS, posted by Dinah on April 29, 2013, at 7:15:12
> How do you come up with such a scale, and how do you communicate it so that both you and your doctors understand it in the same way?
>
> Perhaps I'm being overly precise, but I don't quite know how not to be.I understand this dilemma.
I consider my untreated baseline depression to be represented by a score of zero and remission a score of 100%. However, we are talking a relative scale and not an absolute one. An absolute number could be arrived at by using an established clinical rating scale (Hamilton, Burns, Zung, Montomery-Asberg, etc.). If a treatment makes me feel worse than baseline, I use negative numbers. If I become manic, I will attempt to use numbers above 100%. This is an unusual method of scoring that I came up with to make things quick and easy. However, I know what 100% remission feels like. I don't know if this is necessary for this rating system to work. At a time when I really didn't know what remission felt like, I simply chose the number 3 of 10 as my baseline and worked from there. Since depression is a subjective and nebulous experience, I think one must use a more intuitive approach at approximating a score.
You might want to search the Internet for the various depression rating scales and choose one that you feel makes sense to you. You should be able to get a "feel" for the spectrum of severity based upon more concrete criteria.
https://outcometracker.org/scales_library.php
I think that most of these rating scales suck, so I use them only when I am asked to. They are not without utiity, but I find them to be primitive and not always relevant to my symptomatology.
How about making zero represent the worst state you can imagine and making 10 the best? Intuitively, where would you approximate your position along this spectrum?
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1042759
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130309/msgs/1042891.html