An evaluation of two self-report screening measures for mood in an out-patient chronic heart failure population

✍ Scribed by J. E. Haworth; E. Moniz-Cook; A. L. Clark; M. Wang; J. G. F. Cleland

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 124 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/gps.1807

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Objective

To examine the criterion validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Geriatric Depression Scale 15‐item (GDS‐15) in a community sample of Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) out‐patients.

Methods

Eighty‐eight of 203 older adults with confirmed CHF responded to a postal survey and participated in a face‐to‐face interview. The GDS‐15 and HADS were compared to diagnoses from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐IV (SCID‐I), using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and positive and negative predictive values, sensitivity and specificity for various cut‐off points.

Results

For all depressive disorders, the area under the ROC curve for the GDS‐15 was 0.883 and a cut‐off of 5 gave a sensitivity of 0.818 and a specificity of 0.833. The area under the ROC curve for the HADS Depression (D) and Anxiety (A) were 0.889 and 0.941 respectively. At a cut‐off of 7, the HADS‐A gave a sensitivity of 0.938 and a specificity of 0.847. At a cut‐off of 4, the HADS‐D gave a sensitivity of 0.864 and a specificity of 0.788.

Conclusions

The GDS‐15 and HADS are valid screening tools for detecting depression in aged CHF out‐patients. However, use of the HADS requires reduced cut‐points to ensure that patients with mood disorder are not missed in this population. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.