ABSTRACT
Depression is commonly found in the chronic disable patients and it can effect to rehabilitation process. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D) is one of the psychiatric battery of depression measures. It is a 20-item questionnaire investigating perceived mood and level of functioning within the past seven days. Scores are range from 0.06, with higher scores indicating the increased severity of depression. The objective of this study was to establish the optimal cut off point for Thai people. It was performed among 69 medical personals Siriraj Hospital and 30 psychiatric patients from the department of Psychiatry. Everyone was evaluated by CES-D and DSM-IV method. The finding was that the average score for normal, minor and major depression groups were 10.57 + 4.96, 28.29 + 8.36 and 37.15 + 10.65 with statistical significance (p < 0.001). Scores of 19 or higher was considered indicative of depression with 93.33 per cent sensitivity, 94.2 per cent specificity and 0.9154 reliability. The CES-D could be one of the most useful test for screening of depression.