Am J Psychiatry 1995; 152:1615-1622
Copyright © 1995 by American Psychiatric Association
Who comes to a voluntary depression screening program?
KM Magruder, GS Norquist, MB Feil, B Kopans and D Jacobs
NIMH, Division of Epidemiology, Rockville, MD 20857, USA.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe who comes to a
voluntary depression screening program by analyzing findings from the 1992
National Depression Screening Day. METHOD: Survey results from 5,367 adult
volunteers at 345 facilities were analyzed. The authors examined the
prevalence of depression detected at the screening test and
sociodemographic characteristics and treatment history of the respondents.
They also estimated the percentage of these individuals who would actually
have a diagnosis of major depression (positive predictive value). The main
assessment measure was the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. RESULTS: Of
all participants, 76.6% (N = 4,109) had at least minimal depressive
symptoms (score of at least 50 on the Zung depression scale), 53.3% (N =
2,859) had at least moderate symptoms (score of at least 60), and 22.6% (N
= 1,214) had severe symptoms (score of at least 70). Few of the depressed
respondents were currently in treatment for a mental health problem. The
positive predictive value of a screening test diagnosis of depression was
between 92.5% and 95.5% when a cutoff score of 60 was used to indicate
depression and between 88.7% and 92.3% when a cutoff score of 50 was used.
CONCLUSIONS: Voluntary screening tests, as exemplified by results from the
National Depression Screening Day, provide a good opportunity for
identifying previously unidentified and untreated individuals with
depression.
