SHAPS-C: the Snaith-Hamilton pleasure scale modified for clinician administration

Rezvan Ameli; David A Luckenbaugh; Neda F Gould; M Kathleen Holmes; Níall Lally; Elizabeth D Ballard; Carlos A Zarate Jr

doi:10.7717/peerj.429

SHAPS-C: the Snaith-Hamilton pleasure scale modified for clinician administration

PeerJ. 2014 Jun 17:2:e429. doi: 10.7717/peerj.429. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Rezvan Ameli¹, David A Luckenbaugh¹, Neda F Gould², M Kathleen Holmes³, Níall Lally⁴, Elizabeth D Ballard¹, Carlos A Zarate Jr¹

Affiliations

¹ Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB), National Institutes of Mental Health , NIH, DHHS, Bethesda, MD , USA.
² Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine , Baltimore, MD , USA.
³ Department of Clinical Psychology, St. John's University , Jamaica, NY , USA.
⁴ Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB), National Institutes of Mental Health , NIH, DHHS, Bethesda, MD , USA ; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London , London , UK.

Abstract

Anhedonia, a diminished or lack of ability to experience and anticipate pleasure represents a core psychiatric symptom in depression. Current clinician assessment of anhedonia is generally limited to one or two all-purpose questions and most well-known psychometric scales of anhedonia are relatively long, self-administered, typically not state sensitive, and are unsuitable for use in clinical settings. A user-friendly tool for a more in-depth clinician assessment of hedonic capacity is needed. The present study assessed the validity and reliability of a clinician administered version of the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale, the SHAPS-C, in 34 depressed subjects. We compared total and specific item scores on the SHAPS-C, SHAPS (self-report version), Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self Rating version (IDS-SR). We also examined construct, content, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity, internal consistency, and split-half reliability of the SHAPS-C. The SHAPS-C was found to be valid and reliable. The SHAPS and the SHAPS-C were positively correlated with one another, with levels of depression severity, as measured by the MADRS, and the IDS-SR total scores, and with specific items of the MADRS and IDS-SR sensitive to measuring hedonic capacity. Our investigation indicates that the SHAPS-C is a user friendly, reliable, and valid tool for clinician assessment of hedonic capacity in depressed bipolar and unipolar patients.

Keywords: Anhedonia; Clinician administered; Depression; Self-assessment.

Grants and funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health (NIMH-NIH) and thank the 7SE research unit of the NIMH-NIH for their support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.