A diversity of scales are used as screening tools for depression in clinical settings and epidemiological research; however, many of them have a large number of items and are only validated in person. Objective: The aim of this study was the online validation of the 4-item short version of the Depressive Psychopathology Scale (DPS-4), taking as a reference standard the Depression Scale of the Center for Epidemiological Studies (CES-D). Materials and methods: A total of 256 participants answered a virtual survey, which included general questions about sociodemographic characteristics and background, the DPS-4 scale, and the CES-D. The structure of the DPS-4 was evaluated and its scores were contrasted with the diagnosis of depression defined by a CES-D score ≥24. Results: Taking the CES-D as the reference standard, the DPS-4 had an area under the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) ...