Depressive symptoms of 621 Hong Kong secondary school students were assessed and described using the Children's Depression Inventory. With a cutoff score of 20, 24% of these adolescents would be depressed. In a subsample of 319, depressive symptoms were highest among students with low self-esteem. (SLD)

Issues surrounding accurate assessment of depression in children have received much attention. However, the stability of scores from depression measures has generally been estimated using only classical test score theory, rather than the more powerful generalizability theory. The dependability of scores from the Children's Depression Inventory…