title: Screening for principal versus comorbid conditions in psychiatric outpatients with the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire.
abstract: In examining the performance of screening scales, a distinction should be made between principal and additional diagnoses. The Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ) is a brief, psychometrically strong self-report scale designed to screen for the most common Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed; DSM-IV) Axis I disorders encountered in outpatient mental health settings. In the present report, the authors compared the performance of the PDSQ in identifying principal and comorbid disorders. Seven hundred ninety-nine psychiatric outpatients completed the PDSQ and were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. The sensitivity and negative predictive values of the PDSQ subscales were similar for principal and additional diagnoses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. mzimmerman@lifespan.org
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sheeran
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D015897:Comorbidity; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires