A study of the diagnostic accuracy of the PHQ-9 in primary care elderly

BMC Family Practice

Research Article

Barbara Williams¹  James LoGerfo²  Kathryn Meeker³  Elizabeth Phelan⁴  Katie Bonn⁵  John Frederick⁵  Mark Snowden⁵ 

[1] Department of Health Services, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Health Services, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Medicine, Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Medicine, Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Health Services, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;

关键词: Primary Care;    Major Depression;    Primary Care Setting;    Geriatric Depression Scale;    Depression Screening;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2296-11-63

 received in 2009-12-23, accepted in 2010-09-01,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe diagnostic accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for assessment of depression in elderly persons in primary care settings in the United States has not been previously addressed. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the test performance of the PHQ-9 for detecting major and minor depression in elderly patients in primary care.MethodsA prospective study of diagnostic accuracy was conducted in two primary care, university-based clinics in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Seventy-one patients aged 65 years or older participated; all completed the PHQ-9 and the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and underwent the Structured Clinical Interview for Depression (SCID). Sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and likelihood ratios (LRs) were calculated for the PHQ-9, the PHQ-2, and the 15-item GDS for major depression alone and the combination of major plus minor depression.ResultsTwo thirds of participants were female, with a mean age of 78 and two chronic health conditions. Twelve percent met SCID criteria for major depression and 13% minor depression. The PHQ-9 had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.74-1.00) for major depression, while the PHQ-2 and the 15-item GDS each had an AUC of 0.81 (95% CI for PHQ-2, 0.64-0.98, and for 15-item GDS, 0.70-0.91; P = 0.551). For major and minor depression combined, the AUC for the PHQ-9 was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.73-0.96), for the PHQ-2, 0.80 (95% CI, 0.68-0.93), and for the 15-item GDS, 0.71 (95% CI, 0.55-0.87; P = 0.187).ConclusionsBased on AUC values, the PHQ-9 performs comparably to the PHQ-2 and the 15-item GDS in identifying depression among primary care elderly.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Phelan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010