Clinical implication of children's depression rating scale-revised score: Linking the children's depression rating scale-revised score and clinical global impression using patients data from clinical trials

The Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) score has been widely used to assess the severity of major depression in children and adolescents; however, the clinical implications of changes in the CDRS-R score remain unclear. We evaluated these clinical implications by assessing the relationship between changes in the CDRS-R score and changes in the Clinical Global Impression of Improvement (CGI-I), in clinical research on major depression. We used data from four clinical trials involving two antidepressants and evaluated the relationship between CDRS-R score changes and the CGI-I score using the equipercentile linking method. CDRS-R score changes corresponding to a minimally improved (score of 3) CGI-I score was approximately 14 points. Our findings from the linking analyses are useful for interpreting the clinical implications of changes in the CDRS-R score.