Certain practical issues must be taken into account by the clinician when assessing MDD (Dozois and Dobson, 2009). Depressed people tend to express their problems in detail when they are aware of what is expected of them during the initial assessment phase. Warning depressed clients about possible interruptions early and providing them with a rationale helps improve the effectiveness of the assessment (Dozois & Dobson, 2009). As depressed individuals tend to commit cognitive biases (Dozois & Beck, 2008), it is necessary to determine the actual impairment by assessing the patient's daily routine in terms of different domains of functioning. Each diagnostic criterion must be approached in several ways (Shea, 1988). Sometimes the patient describes their symptoms in a more idiosyncratic way. The clinician must therefore translate these concerns into the nosological system (Dozois & Dobson, 2009). Bolland and Keller (2009) emphasize the need to assess the number of previous episodes and their duration, as this information is one of the predictors of the risk of subsequent relapse (Solomon et al, 2000). Dozois and Dobson (2009) indicated that they rely cautiously on information related to the previous episode because the client may commit reporting bias. Reporting bias can be reduced by ensuring that the patient understands the time period to which they are referring (Dozois and Dobson, 2009) and by providing contextual cues to the patient's memory (Shea, 1988). Information related to previous treatments, medical history, patient's motivation for change, etc. can help identify resources for change (Dozois and Dobson, 2009). It is also helpful to assess the client's strengths, which will help formulate...... middle of document ...... however, if medical conditions worsen the symptoms of depression, then the disorder mood is diagnosed as MDD and the medical condition is listed on Axis III of the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000a). It is difficult to differentiate depression from dementia (Gualtieri and Johnson, 2008), but some differences can be noted between the two (Dozois and Dobson, 2009). For example, recent memory is more affected in depression than distant memory; such symptoms are not important in dementia (Dozois and Dobson, 2009). Conclusion: For an accurate assessment of MDD, the clinician should not rely on the results obtained from a single psychometric instrument. Rather, he or she should try to integrate information obtained from multiple sources to obtain a holistic picture of the patient. Clinicians should also consider the practical issues mentioned above when assessing MDD..