Major Depression Inventory


The Major Depression Inventory is a self-report mood questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization. The instrument was constructed by a team led by Professor Per Bech, a psychiatrist based at Frederiksborg General Hospital in Denmark. The MDI differs from many other self-report inventories, such as the Beck Depression Inventory, because it is able to generate an ICD-10 or DSM-IV diagnosis of clinical depression in addition to an estimate of symptom severity.
Unlike many other similar instruments, the MDI is available free of charge and can be downloaded from the internet with a full manual and scoring instructions. This makes it an attractive option in epidemiological population surveys. It has also been translated into seven languages.

Scoring

To measure treatment outcome the sum of the ten items is used. A higher score signifies deeper depression.
When using the scale to diagnose depression according to ICD-10, there are the following possibilities: