title: Brief self-rated screening for depression on the Internet.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Internet offers promising possibilities for the quick screening of depression for treatment and research purposes. This paper aims to validate three self-rated measures to screen for depression on the Internet: SID (single-item depression scale), CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale) and K10 (Kessler psychological distress scale).
  
  
  METHODS
  Of the 502 subjects aged 18-80 who rated the SID, CES-D and K10 measures on the Internet, 157 (31%) subjects were also interviewed by telephone using the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (C)IDI) for DSM-IV-disorders.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cronbach's alpha for both web self-rated measures CES-D and K10 was 0.90. The SID correlated 0.68 (P<0.001) with the CES-D and with the K10. The CES-D correlated 0.84 with the K10 (P<0.001). Subjects with a DSM-IV diagnosis for any depressive disorder had significantly higher means (P<0.001) on the three self-rated measures for depressive symptoms than subjects without a diagnosis of any depressive disorder. Using any depressive disorder as the gold standard, the area under the curve (AUC) of the SID was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.63-0.79), which was significantly lower than the AUC of the CES-D (AUC: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.77-0.90, P=0.003) and of the K10 (AUC: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.73-0.88, P=0.0024). The AUCs for the K10 and CES-D did not differ significantly from each other.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The CIDI interviews were not recorded, so inter-rater reliability could not be calculated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The CES-D and K10 are reliable, valid tools for care providers to quickly screen depressive patients on the Internet and for researchers to collect data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. T.Donker@psy.vu.nl
authors.forename: Tara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Donker
authors.forename: Annemieke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Straten
authors.forename: Isaac
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Marks
authors.forename: Pim
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cuijpers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019540:Area Under Curve; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult