Depression Information Needs Scale (DINS)

The Depression Information Needs Scale (DINS) assesses the specific information needs of individuals diagnosed with depression, helping to tailor educational resources and interventions to better support patient understanding and management of their condition.

villa Centre

Centre for Mental Health Research

Usage: Permission required

The Depression Information Needs Scale (DINS) is designed to assess the unmet information needs of community members with regards to depression. The DINS contains 20 items in total and is made up of four subscales. The subscales are General (facts about depression), Lived experience, Research and policies, and Specific treatments. Respondents are asked to rate their need for more information about depression. Each item is rated on a 5-point scale from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (4).

Depression information needs scale items

General (facts about depression)

The symptoms of depression and how to tell if someone is depressed
The causes of depression and who is most at risk of depression
The course of depression (how long it lasts and if and how it recurs)
The treatments that work for depression
How common depression is in the community
Which professionals and groups can help someone who is depressed
How I can help someone who is depressed

Lived experience

People’s personal stories about coping with depression during the initial stages of an episode of depression
People’s personal stories about coping during the recovery phase of depression
People’s personal stories about how it feels to be depressed
People’s personal stories about the attitudes of others to their depression
People’s experiences of which treatments work for their depression

Research and policies

Workplace depression policies
Government policies and strategies for combating depression
Funding of research on depression
Recent research findings about depression

Specific treatments

The side effects of antidepressants and how to cope with them
Which psychological treatments work for depression
Which prescription medications work for depression
Which alternative and lifestyle treatments work for depression

Norms and psychometric properties

Population norms

Percentage endorsing an item with either agree or strongly agree.

Based on a sample of 12,319 Australians aged between 18-65, randomly selected via electoral rolls in NSW, VIC and ACT.

General	N^a	%(n)
Specific treatments	N^a	%(n)
Lived experience	N^a	%(n)
General	N^a	%(n)
The symptoms of depression and how to tell if someone is depressed	12,183	69.1 (8,416)
The causes of depression and who is most at risk of depression	12,184	70.1 (8,539)
The course of depression (how long it lasts and if and how it recurs)	12,177	71.5 (8,712)
The treatments that work for depression	12,177	76.0 (9,260)
How common depression is in the community	12,187	50.4 (6,137)
Which professionals and groups can help someone who is depressed	12,152	70.2 (8,536)
How I can help someone who is depressed	12,144	78.1 (9,484)
The side effects of antidepressants and how to cope with them	12,151	64.8 (7,873)
Which psychological treatments work for depression	12,148	65.9 (8,001)
Which prescription medications work for depression	12,146	51.3 (6,226)
Which alternative and lifestyle treatments work for depression	12,148	73.0 (8,869)
People’s personal stories about coping with depression during the initial stages of an episode of depression	12,145	55.9 (6,785)
People’s personal stories about coping during the recovery phase of depression	12,140	57.5 (6,986)
People’s personal stories about how it feels to be depressed	12,149	48.7 (5,922)
People’s personal stories about the attitudes of others to their depression	12,135	54.9 (6,667)
People’s experiences of which treatments work for their depression	12,106	63.9 (7,736)
Workplace depression policies	12,121	62.5 (7,576)
Government policies and strategies for combating depression	12,136	55.9 (6,790)
Funding of research on depression	12,128	56.5 (6,848)
Recent research findings about depression	12,130	69.4 (8,420)

^aN values vary due to missing data.

Key references

Griffiths, K.M. & Crisp, D. (2012). Unmet depression information needs in the community. Journal of Affective Disorders, 146, 348-354.rch, 14: 69.