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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Using an annual over-75 health check to screen for depression
— validation of the short Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS15) within general practice | | Author(s) | Antony Arthur, Carol Jagger, James Lindesay |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 14, no 6, June 1999 |
| Pages | pp 431-439 |
| Keywords | Health [elderly] ; Home visits [doctors] ; Over 70s ; Depression ; Evaluation ; Screening ; General practice ; Melton Mowbray. |
| Annotation | In this two-stage study based on a large general practice in Melton Mowbray, the first stage comprised a health check at home of over 75s by a practice nurse, and included the short Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS15). A random sample (stratified according to first stage GDS-15 score) of 257 over 75s without significant cognitive impairment, were selected for the second-stage diagnostic interview. The GDS-15 score was compared with diagnostic status for depression and anxiety disorders and presence of depressive symptoms at the second-stage clinical interview. 93% of those eligible for the study were successfully screened with the GDS-15. A cutpoint of <3/3+ had a sensitivity of 100% and specificity or 72% in detecting cases of depression but fewer than one in five of those testing positive reached a diagnostic threshold. Only 25% of those with a diagnosis of depression had any mention of mental health problems in their medical notes in the year before the clinical interview. For detecting depressive symptoms, the same cutpoint was 79% sensitive and 78% specific with a positive value of 46%. Use of GDS-15 would go some way towards serving the original purpose of annual health checks, in detecting problems such as depression. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-990825267 A |
| Classmark | CC: L5H: BBK: ENR: 4C: 3V: L5: 8LEC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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