Psychometric properties of responses by clinicians and older adults to a 6-item Hebrew version of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D6)

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Margalit Goldfracht¹  Per Bech²  Yaacov G Bachner³  Norm O’Rourke⁴  Liat Ayalon⁵ 

[1] Community Division, Clalit Health Services, Tel Aviv, Israel and Department of Family, Health Care, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, The Technion, Haifa, Israel;Department of Psychiatry, Frederiksborg General Hospital, Hilleord, Denmark;Department of Public Health and the Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Aging, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B 653, 84105, Beer-Sheva, Israel;Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada;Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel;

关键词: Depression;    Hamilton depression rating scale;    Hebrew;    Elderly;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-13-2

 received in 2012-11-01, accepted in 2012-12-27,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) is commonly used as a screening instrument, as a continuous measure of change in depressive symptoms over time, and as a means to compare the relative efficacy of treatments. Among several abridged versions, the 6-item HAM-D6 is used most widely in large degree because of its good psychometric properties. The current study compares both self-report and clinician-rated versions of the Hebrew version of this scale.MethodsA total of 153 Israelis 75 years of age on average participated in this study. The HAM-D6 was examined using confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models separately for both patient and clinician responses.ResultsReponses to the HAM-D6 suggest that this instrument measures a unidimensional construct with each of the scales’ six items contributing significantly to the measurement. Comparisons between self-report and clinician versions indicate that responses do not significantly differ for 4 of the 6 items. Moreover, 100% sensitivity (and 91% specificity) was found between patient HAM-D6 responses and clinician diagnoses of depression.ConclusionThese results indicate that the Hebrew HAM-D6 can be used to measure and screen for depressive symptoms among elderly patients.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Bachner et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013