Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale
Issue the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale to your client to assess the severity of their depression and see what you can do based on the results!
Fact Checked by RJ Gumban.
What is a depression scale?
Depression rating scales like the Beck Depression Inventory and Geriatric Depression Scale are instruments that commonly come in the form of questionnaires. These scales aim to gauge the severity of a person's major depressive disorder and determine if they have mild, moderate, or severe depression. It's also worth noting that these aren't used to diagnose people but to determine if they should be up for diagnosis. These instruments also assign score ranges and designations to help psychologists and related health practitioners assess the course of action to help their patients/clients.
Depression scales come in the following forms:
- Self-assessments were issued to patients for them to answer
- Some are used just by the practitioner, and they will simply observe and answer prompts based on their observations
- Some are worked on by both the practitioner and the patient/client
For this particular guide, we'll be using the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale, which comes in the form of a self-assessment!
Printable Zung Self-rating Depression Scale
Download this Zung Self-rating Depression Scale in order to assess the severity of your client’s depressive symptoms.
How to use the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale
The Zung Self-rating Depression Scale was designed and developed by William W.K. Zung, MD (1929-1992), a psychiatrist from Duke University.
This scale presupposes that your patient has already been diagnosed with depressive disorder. Here are the steps you need to take to complete the depression scale.
Issue the scale to your patient
The scale is fairly easy to use. You simply need to issue it to your patient and have them rate themselves based on the following prompts:
- I feel downhearted and blue
- Morning is when I feel the best
- I have crying spells or feel like crying
- I have trouble sleeping at night
- I eat as much as I used to
- I still enjoy sex
- I notice that I'm losing weight
- I have trouble with constipation
- My heart beats faster than usual
- I get tired for no reason
- My mind is as clear as it used to be
- I find it easy to do the things I used to
- I am restless and can't keep still
- I feel hopeful about the future
- I am more irritable than usual
- I find it easy to make decisions
- I feel that I am useful and needed
- My life is pretty full
- I feel that others would be better off if I were dead
- I still enjoy the things I used to do
They will answer themselves by picking one of four answers per item:
- A little of the time
- Some of the time
- Good part of the time
- Most of the time
Tally the score and determine the treatment plan you think your client needs
This depression scale has score ranges:
- 25-49 = Normal range
- 50-59 = Mildly depressed
- 60-69 = Moderately depressed
- 70-80 = Severely depressed
Once you've totaled your patient's score, your next step is to determine a suitable treatment plan for them. Please note that this scale should not be used to diagnose major depression. It would be best to conduct other assessments and interviews first, then cross-check findings with the diagnostic criteria set by the most recent edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders before making a diagnosis.
Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale example
Here's a filled-out Zung Self-rating Depression Scale example to help consolidate your understanding of how this resource works.
Download this Zung Self-rating Depression Scale example (sample) here:
When would you typically use the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale?
The Zung Self-rating Depression Scale can be used as soon as you decide to assess your client's depression severity. The scale presupposes that your patient/client has already been diagnosed with depression, so the goal entails determining what needs to be done to help them.
This also isn't a one-off thing. Let's say the patient is already in the middle of a treatment plan. You can reissue the scale regularly to determine whether there are any significant changes.
Reissuing this now and then will help you determine whether your plan is working and if you need to improve.
Who can use this printable Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale?
The following healthcare practitioners can use the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale for their respective practices:
- Clinical psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Mental health therapists
- Counselors
Why use Carepatron for mental health software?
Here at Carepatron, we care about helping healthcare practitioners improve productivity and efficiency, especially when streamlining their clinical documentation. By taking advantage of our easy-to-navigate EHR system, you'll gain access to various depression scale assessments, such as the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale.
Our assessments will help you gauge your patient's depression severity. These assessments should also aid in helping you determine the next course of care program, whether it's diagnosing them, deciding what medicine to use, and other actionable steps that may help them work through their condition!
You can even store these assessments in a HIPAA-compliant manner and secure them by setting up who can access these documents besides you.
Not only are our depression software and assessments intuitive, but they're also easily accessible! Whether using an office desktop, a laptop, or even just your phone, you can access your depression scale assessments anytime, anywhere.
We're confident our features are cool and helpful enough that you'll consider us your number-one mental health EHR.
Commonly asked questions
A good number of depression scales come with number ranges, each with a designation for a severity level. The Zung Self-rating Depression Scale comes with number ranges to help you gauge your patient’s depression severity level.
While it does sound strange to quantify a depression’s severity level, what the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and many other depression scales do is create a semblance of objectivity through their score ranges and designations. They are there to give you an idea of how mild or severe your patient’s depression is, as well as help you determine what goes into your treatment plan for them.
Self-forgiveness can help people let go of harsh self-criticisms. It can also help them realize that they’re human and they’ve made mistakes. Once they realize these, they can take the steps to move on and do better.
