Brief screen to identify 5 of the most common forms of psychosocial distress in cardiac patients: validation of the screening tool for psychological distress.
OBJECTIVE
To develop and validate a brief psychosocial screening tool (Screening Tool for Psychological Distress [STOP-D]) for use in the outpatient cardiology setting.


BACKGROUND
Psychosocial factors contribute significantly to the morbidity and mortality associated with coronary artery disease. Yet, it is often considered overly burdensome to implement full-scale psychological assessments for every patient.


METHODS
Over 3 months, 194 cardiac patients were consecutively recruited from 3 cardiac clinics: heart transplant (pre and post), cardiac rehabilitation, and adult congenital heart. Subjects filled out a questionnaire that included: (1) demographics, (2) STOP-D, (3) Beck Depression Inventory-II, (4) Beck Anxiety Inventory, (5) State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2, and (6) MOS Social Support Survey.


RESULTS
Analyses reveal all STOP-D items are highly correlated with the corresponding measures and have robust receiver operating characteristic curves. Severity scores on STOP-D-depression and STOP-D-anxiety correlate well with established severity cutoff scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Beck Anxiety Inventory, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the STOP-D performs very well when compared with other longer and validated measures. The STOP-D is a 5-item self-report measure, which provides severity scores for: depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and poor social support. The STOP-D is self-administered and takes between 1 and 2 minutes to fill out, gives valid severity scores on 5 key areas of psychological distress (depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and poor social support), requires no scoring, and is free to use.
Young
Quincy-Robyn
QR
Heart Centre, St Paul's Hospital, 5C, 1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada. qyoung@providencehealth.bc.ca
Ignaszewski
Andrew
A
Fofonoff
Doreen
D
Kaan
Annemarie
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001007:Anxiety / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D003863:Depression / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012923:Social Class; D012944:Social Support; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires