Depression Screener from RAND Health Care
This self-administered depression screener was developed for RAND's Partners in Care study. The screener included the items for assessing major depressive and dysthymic disorders from the 12-month Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and items assessing depression symptoms in the past month. The parent CIDI items were developed by Dr. Gavin Andrews with support from the National Institute of Mental Health and the World Health Organization. The Partners in Care team developed the additional items and converted the screener for patient self-report.
We defined patients as having a probable disorder if they had 2 weeks or more of depressed mood or loss of interest in pleasurable activities during the last year or persistent depression over the year, plus having at least 1 week of depression in the last 30 days. Based on a sample of 1,485 study patients who received the full CIDI affective disorders section, the positive predictive value of this self-administered screener is about 55%. That is, in the population of patients identified by the screener, about half have clinical depression.