Several screening tools for depression are available:

• Beck Depression Inventory – a self-report scale with 21 items (Beck et al., 1961). A cut-off score of 13 on the Beck seems to screen for about 70% of MS patients with significant depression in ambulatory settings, while still missing about 30% of such patients.
• Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen, selects out items most sensitive to the more neurologic symptoms in MS.
• Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D – Verdier-Taillefer et al., 2001) used in many large epidemiologic studies of depression.
• Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDS – Rush et al., 1996) – includes both clinician-rated and self-report versions.
• Two question screen (Mohr et al., 2007) – has been shown to be reliable in identifying MS patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Asking two brief questions could identify almost all MS patients meeting MDD criteria, with minimal numbers of false positives.
  
  1. During the past two weeks, have you often been bothered by feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?
  2. During the past two weeks, have you often been bothered by little interest or pleasure in doing things?

Of these options, the Goldman Consensus Statement on Depression in Multiple Sclerosis recommends the Beck Inventory, with a cutoff score of 13.