IMPACT OF KENDALL, HOLLON, BECK, HAMMEN, AND INGRAM (1987) ON TREATMENT OF THE CONTINUITY ISSUE IN DEPRESSION RESEARCH

The article, ''Issues and Recommendations Regarding Use of the Beck Depression Inventory'' (Kendall, Hollon, Beck, Hammen, & Ingram, 1987), has had a major impact on depression research. A majority of studies using only the BDI in nonclinical samples now refer to the construct measured as ''dysphoria'' rather than ''depression.'' This word change, however, is not always accompanied by other changes in research design and interpretation that would seem warranted by the concerns that initially prompted the ''dysphoria'' recommendation, such as the nonspecificity of high BDI scores to major depression. Researchers typically continue to derive hypotheses from depression theory, use only the BDI to measure ''dysphoria'' rather than purer markers of negative affectivity, cite as a limitation of their findings the danger of assuming continuity between subclinical and clinical depression, and sometimes lapse into ''depression'' terminology. Alternative suggestions are made for considering how the particular goals of a study might lead to various ways of handling the continuity issue.