title: Screening instruments for a population of older adults: The 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7).
abstract: Screening tools that appropriately detect older adults' mental disorders are of great public health importance. The present study aimed to establish cutoff scores for the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress (K10) and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scales when screening for depression and anxiety. We used data from participants (n = 1811) in the Enquête sur la Santé des Aînés-Service study. Depression and anxiety were measured using DSM-V and DSM-IV criteria. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis provided an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.767 and 0.833 for minor and for major depression when using K10. A cutoff of 19 was found to balance sensitivity (0.794) and specificity (0.664) for minor depression, whereas a cutoff of 23 was found to balance sensitivity (0.692) and specificity (0.811) for major depression. When screening for an anxiety with GAD-7, ROC analysis yielded an AUC of 0.695; a cutoff of 5 was found to balance sensitivity (0.709) and specificity (0.568). No significant differences were found between subgroups of age and gender. Both K10 and GAD-7 were able to discriminate between cases and non-cases when screening for depression and anxiety in an older adult population of primary care service users.
authors.affiliation: University of Sherbrooke, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada; Charles Le Moyne Hospital Research Center, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: helen-maria.vasiliadis@usherbrooke.ca.
authors.forename: Helen-Maria
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Vasiliadis
authors.affiliation: Charles Le Moyne Hospital Research Center, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada; Bishops University, Sherbrooke, Canada.
authors.forename: Veronica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chudzinski
authors.affiliation: University of Sherbrooke, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada; Charles Le Moyne Hospital Research Center, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gontijo-Guerra
authors.affiliation: University of Sherbrooke, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada; Charles Le Moyne Hospital Research Center, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Préville
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Anxiety disorders; Depressive disorder; Old age; Primary health care; ROC curve