title: A brief and rapid procedure to measure the intensity of depressive symptoms in Primary Care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Depression occupies a substantial part of medical visit attendance. However, medical practitioners have very little time so that a brief, quick and reliable procedure to evaluate the intensity of symptoms and their changes could be useful. Our objective has been to analyze the reliability of a self-applied Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to measure symptom intensity in depressed patients within this context.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred depressed outpatients (ICD-10) stated their clinical situation on a VAS. The psychiatrist evaluated them using a Global Clinical Impression (GGI) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The patient's VAS showed high correlation with the HDRS-17 and with the GCI used by the psychiatrist (r = 0.63 and r=0.58; p=0.000). This suggests that the use of a VAS in Primary Care could be useful and reliable for these purposes within the medical contexts of those having little time availability. Key-words: Depression, primary care, medical patients, assessment, evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Mental Health Service "Miraflores" de Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cordero-Villafáfila
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ramos-Brieva
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez Labrador
authors.forename: M L Zamarro
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Arranz
mesh_terms: D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors