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

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: CDRS‐R score changes corresponding to a minimally improved (score of 3) CGI‐I score was approximately 14 points. CONCLUSION: Our findings from the linking analyses are useful for interpreting the clinical implications of changes in the CDRS‐R score.