Screening for depression in well older adults: evaluation of a short form of the CES-D (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale).
We derived and tested a short form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) for reliability and validity among a sample of well older adults in a large Health Maintenance Organization. The 10-item screening questionnaire, the CESD-10, showed good predictive accuracy when compared to the full-length 20-item version of the CES-D (kappa = .97, P < .001). Cutoff scores for depressive symptoms were > or = 16 for the full-length questionnaire and > or = 10 for the 10-item version. We discuss other potential cutoff values. The CESD-10 showed an expected positive correlation with poorer health status scores (r = .37) and a strong negative correlation with positive affect (r = -.63). Retest correlations for the CESD-10 were comparable to those in other studies (r = .71). We administered the CESD-10 again after 12 months, and scores were stable with strong correlation of r = .59.
Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, NY 14642.
E M
EM
Andresen
J A
JA
Malmgren
W B
WB
Carter
D L
DL
Patrick
D000368:Aged; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires