Elsevier

General Hospital Psychiatry

Volume 28, Issue 4, July–August 2006, Pages 321-322
General Hospital Psychiatry

Psychiatric–Medical Comorbidity
Evaluation of a one-question interview for depression in a radiation oncology department in Japan

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2006.02.003Get rights and content

Abstract

This study aims to clarify the validity of the brief screening measure of depression in Japan. It was the single-item interview "Are you depressed?" that provided a reliable and remarkable accurate screen in North America. The study was conducted on 282 participants receiving radiotherapy for cancer. The criterion diagnosis were given by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-(SCID). On the basis of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) aanlyses, we compared the results obtained using single-item interview with major and minor depressive disorders defined by DSM-TR and calculated the sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratio (LR). The result of the present study indicated a sensitivity of 42% (95% CI 22–61%) and a specificity of 86% (95% CI 82–91%), and LR of 3.1. In conclusion, single-item interview "Are you depressed?" did not have sufficient sensitivity.

Introduction

Diagnosis of depression is difficult because many medical staffs are unfamiliar with the symptoms [1]. For this reason, there has been a need for a simple screening tool for depression that can be easily applied by any medical staff. Asking the question “Are you depressed?” to North American cancer patients receiving palliative care in a single-item interview was shown to have perfect sensitivity and specificity [2]. On the one hand, in a U.K. population, the same question had a sensitivity of 55% and a specificity of 74% [3]. To clarify the validity of such a single-item interview, we examined whether or not it was useful for Japanese cancer patients.

Section snippets

Methods and results

The participants in this study were recruited from among patients receiving radiotherapy for cancer. Patients were excluded if they could not read and understand the explanation of informed consent or if they had not been informed of their cancer. Three hundred five were eligible to participate in the study. A total of 282 patients consented to participate, giving a participation ratio of 92.5%. The study patients were aged 26–90 (S.D.=11.7, mean=62.2) years.

We investigated the use of two

Discussion

This study examined the usefulness of the single-item interview “Are you depressed?” Our findings were not sufficiently conclusive to prove that the single-item interview is useful for assessing depression in Japanese cancer patients. Although the single-item interview was reported to be useful in North America, it was not considered useful in the United Kingdom. The results of the present study indicated a sensitivity of 42% (95% CI 22–61%) and a specificity of 86% (95% CI 82–91%). In other

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