Revisiting the theoretical and methodological foundations of depression measurement

Depressive disorders are among the leading causes of global disease burden, but there has been limited progress in understanding and treatments for these disorders. In this Perspective, we suggest that such depends crucially on our ability to measure depression. We review many problems with depression measurement, including evidence validity reliability. These issues raise grave concerns about common uses measures, as diagnosis or tracking treatment progress. argue shortcomings arise because measurement rests shaky methodological theoretical foundations. Moving forward, need break field’s tradition, which has, decades, divorced theories from how it. Instead, epistemic iteration, an iterative exchange between theory provides a crucial avenue progressing burden. Fried et al. understanding, predicting treating despite wealth empirical research stems foundations measurement.