science

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire rather than just read about it. In short: The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is a survey that measures depressive symptoms in children and young adults. It was developed by Adrian Angold and Elizabeth J.

Key takeaways

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is a survey that measures depressive symptoms in children and young adults. It was developed by Adrian Angold and Elizabeth J. Costello in 1987, and validity data were gathered as part of the Great Smoky Mountain epidemiological study in Western North Carolina. The questionnaire consists of a variety of statements describing feelings or behaviors that may manifest as depressive symptoms in children between the ages of 6 and 17. The subject is asked to indicate how much each statement applies to their recent experiences. The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire has six versions, short (13 item) and long (33 item) forms of each of the following: a youth self-report, a version that a parent would complete, and a self-report version for adults. Several peer-reviewed studies have found the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire to be a reliable and valid measure of depression in children. Compared to many other depression scales for youth, it has more extensive coverage of symptoms and more age-appropriate wording and content.

Scoring and interpretation The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire has several tests, one short and one long, with the short questionnaire including 13 questions and the long questionnaire consisting of 33 questions. Scoring of the questionnaire works by summing the point values allocated to each question. The responses and their allocated point values are as follows: "not true" = 0 points "somewhat true" = 1 point "true" = 2 points Scores on the short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire range from 0 to 26, whereas scores on the long version range from 0 to 66. Higher score are indicative of increased depressive symptom severity. Scores larger than 12 on the short version or larger than 27 on the long version are suggestive of likely depression and warrant further clinical assessment.

Validity The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, along with the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, shows reasonable psychometric properties for identifying children in early adolescence with a depressive disorder. Secondly, it does not significantly differentiate between children with depression versus children with anxiety disorders. Finally, the questionnaire has been translated into Arabic, Spanish and Norwegian, but testing of these versions is more limited.

Limitations Questionnaires like the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire should not act as a substitute for thorough clinical evaluations for both the child and parent.

References

Further reading Birmaher, Boris; Brent, David; AACAP Work Group on Quality Issues (November 2007). "Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Depressive Disorders" (PDF). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 46 (11): 1503–1526. doi:10.1097/chi.0b013e318145ae1c. PMID 18049300. S2CID 10100984.

External links "The MFQ". Center for Developmental Epidemiology. Duke University Health System. — Information about the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire along with PDF downloads of self- and parent-rated child version and self-rated adult version in both short and long forms.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire

In research: The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Depression self-report inventories, Psychological testing stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire in simple terms?

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire is a survey that measures depressive symptoms in children and young adults. It was developed by Adrian Angold and Elizabeth J.

Why does The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire.