Single item measures of parental history of depression: Do adult children's responses agree with their parents' own reports?

The minimal-fair agreement between the single item measure of parental history of depression and parents' own responses was driven by adult children's underestimation or unawareness of their parents having a history of depression. The observed levels of agreement were similar to those of other studies that used multi-item measures to examine agreement between informant reports and first-degree relatives' history of depression.