Use of brief tools to measure depressive symptoms in women with a history of intimate partner violence.
BACKGROUND
Nurses play a crucial role in the routine assessment of depression. However, brief depression assessment tools--necessary for busy clinical settings--have not been evaluated to identify depression in women with histories of intimate partner violence.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the utility of two 5-question subsets from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale in detecting depressive symptoms in women with abuse histories.


METHODS
The sample comprised 448 women involved in police- or court-reported incidents of intimate partner violence who completed a questionnaire used to assess depression with the 20-item CES-D scale. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to identify score thresholds for two 5-question subsets from the CES-D for detecting (a) depressive symptoms and (b) severe depressive symptoms. Depression prevalence was estimated using score thresholds identified in the ROC analysis. The discriminating ability of the CES-D question subsets was also evaluated.


RESULTS
Using thresholds identified in the ROC analyses, sensitivities ranged from .94 to .95 according to the CES-D question subsets for depressive symptoms and .97 to .98 for severe depressive symptoms. Specificity ranged from .73 to .87. Depression prevalence according to the 20-item CES-D was 84% for depressive symptoms and 67% for severe depression. Depression prevalences were 81%-84% (depressive symptoms) and 72% (severe depressive symptoms) using the CES-D question subsets. The two CES-D question subsets were comparable in their ability to identify minor and severe depressive symptoms, using the 20-item score as the gold standard (area under the curve range = .96-.97).


CONCLUSIONS
Two brief question subsets were effective in identifying depression and can be used by nurses to assess depression in women with histories of abuse.
Bonomi
Amy E
AE
Human Development & Family Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus 43210, USA. bonomi.1@osu.edu
Kernic
Mary A
MA
Anderson
Melissa L
ML
Cannon
Elizabeth A
EA
Slesnick
Natasha
N
D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D015995:Prevalence; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014861:Washington / Q000453:epidemiology