Depression measures research report
For patients who visit their GP with suspected depression, it is
important that the severity of their depressive symptoms can be
measured. This helps the make sure they offered the appropriate,
evidence based interventions.
The Integrated Care Pathway (ICP) for Depression and the Quality
and Outcomes Framework (QOF) highlight this need.
However, there is a lack of psychometric comparisons between
validated measures to help GPs to choose the best assessment tool
for measuring the severity of their patient’s depression.
The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties
of four tools:
- PHQ-9
- HADS
- BDI-II and
- QIDS-SR
in relation to the clinician administered Hamilton Rating Scale
for Depression (HRSD).
This study was carried out with the help of a sample of primary
care patients with a depression diagnosis.
Findings show that across the UK, the commonly used scales for
measuring the severity of depressive symptoms are invalid for
selecting treatments which have been determined by depression
severity.
Published Date: 1 April 2011
