Screening for mental health problems among patients with substance use disorders: preliminary findings on the validation of a self-assessment instrument.
OBJECTIVE
We conducted a preliminary study on the validation of the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ) among patients seeking treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs).


METHODS
We assessed 76 patients with SUDs, using the PDSQ, followed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated.


RESULTS
Overall, the psychometric properties identified with the PDSQ in patients with SUDs differed from those found in psychiatric outpatient populations. The ROC curves were calculated for major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. The areas under the curves were 0.86 (95% CI, 0.77 to 0.95; P < 0.001), 0.79 (95% CI, 0.68 to 0.90; P < 0.001), and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.51 to 0.82; P = 0.05), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The use of the PDSQ to screen for other psychiatric disorders in populations with SUDs is promising but requires larger validation studies to provide data on its psychometric properties and inform the choice of cut-off scores for this population.
Castel
Saulo
S
Whitby Mental Health Centre, Ontario. castels@wmhc.ca
Rush
Brian
B
Kennedy
Sidney
S
Fulton
Kari
K
Toneatto
Tony
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014342:Truth Disclosure