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.
Parker
Gordon
G
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
Gladstone
Gemma
G
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