The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ) - Child Long Version

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ) questionnaire was created by Adrian Angold and Elizabeth J. Costello in 1987 to measure depressive symptoms in children and young adults. The MFQ has multiple language translations (English, Arabic, Spanish and Norwegian), multiple length versions, and a version for parents and a version for the child. The questions were designed to capture depressive symptoms in children between the ages of 6 and 17. There are some peer-reviewed studies that have found the MFQ to be a reliable and valid measure of depression in children. However psychometric studies for its use for diagnosis, staging severity, and following treatment progress are very limited or do not exist. Scoring of the questionnaire works by summing the point values allocated to each question. Higher scores are indicative of increased depressive symptom severity. The MFQ is best used as a screening tool, as it has some psychometric studies for identifying children in early adolescence with a depressive disorder. The study demonstrated some internal consistency, moderate inter-informant agreement and good convergent validity. However, there is limited evidence to the cut of scores for each version, and their respective psychometric values, such as sensitivity and specificity.