Summary: The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a depression scale designed to measure depressive symptomatology in the general population. The authors developed a Portuguese version of this scale. This article presents the results of the three studies carried out with this version. These results support the reliability and the validity of the scale. The CES-D proved to be sensitive to variations in the intensity of depressive symptomatology and can be used in epidemiological studies or as a screening instrument in a clinical setting. Sex does have some influence on the values of sensitivity and specificity but the educational level has a greater influence on scores: Subjects with a lower education level tend to obtain higher scores with the same level of depressive symptomatology as evaluated by the clinical interview.

Pain complaints and depressive symptoms seem to be risk factors for future depressive episodes. We present a one-year follow-up study on Portuguese women and primary health care (initial sample: n = 503). We used the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), a short questionnaire on pain, and clinical interviews. We used forward stepwise logistic regression analysis to define models that enable the prediction of developing a major depressive episode in the one-year follow-up. We concluded that nondepressed women with (a) high scores (≥28) at the CES-D, (b) a high severity of pain index, and (c) fatigue complaints at the baseline were particularly at risk.

Empirical research on the relationship between menopause and depression has found contradictory results. Some authors suggest that depression is related to menopausal symptoms and not to menopausal status per se. Our aim is to study the relationship between menopausal status and depressive symptoms in a sample (n = 728) of middle-aged Portuguese women, taking into account the presence of menopausal symptoms. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). There is a relatively high significant correlation between depressive and menopausal symptomatology (rs = .47). The increase of depressive symptomatology in perimenopause is still significant, even when adjusting for the presence of menopausal symptomatology.

Apresentação do número temático. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v19i1/2.395

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