Individual differences in appraisal of depression

This work introduces the Personal Appraisal Inventory (PAI) that was designed to quantify the personal meaning of experiencing a psychiatric disorder. The need to develop this new instrument is discussed and the results of a study with patients diagnosed and receiving treatment for major depression is presented. Specifically, factor analysis of the PAI items and the variance in depression scores explained by these factors is outlined. The findings suggest that the PAI provides a significant inroad to identifying coherent patterns of personal meaning.