OBJECTIVE: The Clinical Monitoring Form (CMF) for mood disorders was developed as a time efficient record keeping tool for routine clinical use. This report presents preliminary data evaluating the correlation between the CMF's dimensional subscales for depression and mood elevation and formal mood rating scales across a wide spectrum of mood states. METHODS: To harvest data for 500 follow-up visits required collection of data from consecutive records accumulated during the conduct of seven double blind clinical trials involving a total of 58 participants. These trials utilized the CMF as a source document in conjunction with formal study outcome scales, e.g. Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) and the Mania Rating Scale (MRS) from the Schedule of Affective Disorders-Current (SUM-C). Correlation coefficients were calculated to examine the relationship between the formal rating scales, Clinical Global Impression and the depression (SUM-D) and mood elevation (SUM-ME) subscales of the CMF. RESULTS: Robust correlations were observed between SUM-D and the formal depression scales, HRSD and MADRS, r = 0.79, r = 0.88. respectively. Similar robust correlations were also found between the SUM-ME and the formal mood elevation scales, YMRS and the MRS, r = 0.84, r = 0.86, respectively. CONCLUSION: The CMF appears to offer a reasonable alternative to the formal rating scales typically used in research studies.