title: A brief sensitive screening instrument for depression in late life.
abstract: Data collected with the depression scale (DEP) of the Brief Assessment Scale (BAS) at interviews with 811 elderly subjects were analysed to determine which of its 21 individual items could be selected to produce a short screening scale for depression which would have less than 10 items and a Cronbach's alpha above 0.8. Eight items which fulfilled these requirements were selected to form the Even Briefer Assessment Scale for Depression (EBAS DEP). The validity of the scale was assessed against psychiatric diagnoses made on a subset of 211 subjects. The EBAS DEP had a sensitivity and specificity for a diagnosis of a DSM-III-R mood disorder (depressed) of 0.91 and 0.72, respectively. The EBAS DEP could be useful as a brief screen for depression in busy hospital and primary care settings where a full assessment of mood for every patient is impractical. The EBAS DEP is presented, together with instructions for its use, to enable independent study of its reliability and validity in other populations.
authors.affiliation: University of Melbourne Department of Psychiatry, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ames
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ashby
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bennetts
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tuckwell
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008131:London / Q000453:epidemiology; D008403:Mass Screening; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results