Performance of the SF-36 health survey in screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in an elderly female Swedish population.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the sensitivity, specificity and predictive validity of suggested cut-off scores in the SF-36 mental health (MH) and mental component summary (MCS) in screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in a population sample of older Swedish women.


METHODS
The sample comprised 586 randomly selected females aged 70-84 years who took part in an in-depth psychiatric examination. This provided the 'gold standard' against which the usefulness of SF-36 recommended thresholds for screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in older Swedish women was examined.


RESULTS
Based on DSM-III-R criteria, 69 women (12%) were diagnosed with depression (major depression, dysthymia and/or depression NOS) and 49 (8%) with generalised anxiety and panic disorders. The previously recommended MH and MCS cut-offs (i.e. 52 and 42) gave a specificity for diagnosis of depression of 92 and 82% and sensitivity of 58 and 71%, respectively. Both the MH and MCS were good predictors of depressive disorders but poor predictors of anxiety disorders.


CONCLUSIONS
The study supports the predictive validity of suggested SF-36 MH and MCS cut-off scores in screening for depressive disorder but not for anxiety disorder in older women in Sweden.
Silveira
E
E
Department of Geriatric Medicine, Mölndal Hospital, Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University, Sweden. mail@ellensilveira.com
Taft
C
C
Sundh
V
V
Waern
M
M
Palsson
S
S
Steen
B
B
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D016387:Women's Health