Self Stigma of Depression Scale (SSDS)
Summary
Usage: Please cite: Barney, L. J., Griffiths, K. M., Christensen, H., & Jorm, A. F. (2010). The Self‐Stigma of Depression Scale (SSDS): development and psychometric evaluation of a new instrument. International journal of methods in psychiatric research, 19(4), 243-254. doi: 10.1002/mpr.325
The Self-Stigma of Depression Scale is designed to assess the extent to which a person holds stigmatising attitudes towards themselves in relation to having depression. It is a 16 item scale with four subscales: Shame, Self-blame, Social inadequacy, and Help-seeking inhibition. Responses to the self-stigma items are measured on a five-point scale (ranging from one ‘strongly agree’ to five ‘strongly disagree’). Items are coded so that a higher score indicates greater self-stigma.
Self-Stigma of Depression Scale Items
Shame
- I would feel ashamed.
- I would feel embarrassed
- I would feel inferior to other people.
- I would feel disappointed in myself.
Self-slame
- I would think I should be able to cope with things.
- I would think I should be able to ‘pull myself together’.
- I would think I should be stronger.
- I would think I only had myself to blame.
Help-seeking inhibition
- I would feel embarrassed about seeking professional help for depression.
- I would feel embarrassed if others knew I was seeking professional help for depression.
- I would see myself as weak if I took antidepressants.
- I wouldn’t want people to know that I wasn’t coping.
Social inadequacy
- I would feel I couldn’t contribute much socially.
- I would feel inadequate around other people.
- I would feel like I was good companya.
- I would feel like a burden to other people.
a Reverse-scored item
Norms and psychometric properties
Internal consistency
SSDS total: α = 0.87
Shame Subscale: α = 0.83
Self-Blame Subscale: α = 0.78
Help-Seeking Inhibition Subscale: α = 0.79
Social Inadequacy Subscale: α = 0.79
Test-retest reliability
Intraclass correlations
SSDS total: p̂ 0.63, p < 0.001
Shame Subscale: p̂ 0.56, p < 0.001
Self-Blame Subscale: p̂ 0.54, p < 0.001
Help-Seeking Inhibition Subscale: p̂ 0.63, p < 0.001
Social Inadequacy Subscale: p̂ 0.49, p < 0.001
Norms
Mean score on the SSDS and subscales by severity level of depression.
| No depression | Mild depression | Moderate to severe depression | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 57.76 | 59.04 | 61.05 |
| Shame | 14.63 | 15.02 | 15.61 |
| Self-blame | 14.95 | 15.14 | 15.47 |
| Help-seeking inhibition | 13.19 | 13.67 | 14.51 |
| Social inadequacy | 14.99 | 15.22 | 15.47 |
Note: These means were obtained from scores which were recoded so that higher scores indicated high self-stigma.
Based on a sample of 1312 community members from New South Wales (randomly selected via the electoral roll) and a follow up of 151 of these people.
Key references
Barney, L.J., Griffiths, K.M., Christensen, H., & Jorm, A.F. (2010) The Self-Stigma of Depression Scale (SSDS): development and psychometric evaluation of a new instrument. International Journal of Methods In Psychiatric Research; 19: 243-254.