Validity of the Hamilton Endogenous Subscale: an independent replication.

We calculated scores on the Hamilton Endogenous Subscale (HES) (Thase et al., 1983) for 252 depressed inpatients. The HES scores were bimodally distributed, and HES classification was significantly associated with endogenous (Research Diagnostic Criteria) and melancholic (DSM-III) subtyping. Based on a cutoff score of 8, HES classification was not associated with either family history of specific psychiatric illness or abnormal dexamethasone suppression test (DST) results. When the cutoff was raised to 10, DST nonsuppression was more frequent in HES endogenous depressives, although we again failed to find an association with a family history of psychiatric disorders.