Single-item Measure

Major depression is a prevalent and disabling mental disorder, yet not all individuals exposed to stressful life events develop depressive symptoms, highlighting the role of other relevant variables. The present study examined whether a single-item global life appraisal (“Have you had good or bad luck in your life?”) reflects cognitive distortions and mediates the relationship between stress and depression. A sample of 191 participants (mean age = 17.0 years, 61% female) completed measures of depressive symptoms (BDI-II), stressful life events (SRRS), and the single-item cognitive distortion indicator. Results indicated that while stressful life events were moderately associated with depressive symptoms (r = .28, p < .001), the single-item measure of cognitive distortion showed a substantially stronger association (ρ = .66, p < .001). Path analysis supported full mediation, suggesting that the impact of stressful life events over depressive symptomatology is highly infuenced by cognitive distortion processing. These findings highlight the central role of cognitive distortions in linking stress exposure to depression and suggest that a single-item comprising core depressive cognitive distortions can serve as a brief, theoretically grounded indicator of cognitive vulnerability for depression. Such concise measures may facilitate early detection of at-risk individuals and inform targeted prevention and intervention strategies, particularly in settings with limited resources or high demand for rapid screening.