Capacity of the 10-item Depression in the Medically Ill screening measure to detect depression 'caseness' in psychiatric out-patients.
The 10-item Depression in the Medically Ill (DMI-10) screening measures has been demonstrated to be useful in medically ill and general practice patients. Its usefulness as a screening or monitoring measure in depressed psychiatric out-patients is now reported. One hundred subjects-currently depressed or recovered from a recent episode-completed the measure, with scores for those 69 currently meeting DSM-IV depression caseness criteria compared with 31 non-depressed subjects. A cut-off score of 10 or more had high sensitivity and specificity for discriminating between 'cases' and 'non-cases'. The discriminating capacity of each item was also quantified. We conclude that the DMI-10 is brief, gender non-specific and less intrusive than many depression screening measures in clinical practice with depressed patients, with the currently established cut-off score similar to that established in medically ill samples. Analyses suggest useful items for clinicians to determine depression caseness status.
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales and Mood Disorders Unit, Black Dog Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, NSW 2031, Australia. g.parker@unsw.edu.au
Gordon
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Parker
Gemma
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Gladstone
D000328:Adult; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires