OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the performance characteristics and validity of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Item (PHQ-9) as a screening tool for depression among adolescents. METHODS The PHQ-9 was completed by 442 youth (aged 13-17 years) who were enrolled in a large health care-delivery system and participated in a study on depression outcomes. Criterion validity an...

BACKGROUND Item 9 of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) evaluates passive thoughts of death or self-injury within the last two weeks, and is often used to screen depressed patients for suicide risk. We aimed to validate the PHQ-9 item 9 with a brief electronic version of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (eC-SSRS). METHODS We analyzed data from 841 patients enrolled in the Nation...

BACKGROUND Treatment non-response among high-risk, psychiatric patients exposes those suffering to suicidal risk as well as persistent social and occupational difficulties. Strategies for identification of treatment non-response are limited. AIMS Diagnostic efficiency of a self-report, cross-cutting symptom measure was assessed as a marker of treatment non-response. METHOD 835 inpatients at...

Chronic illness accounts for the majority of healthcare expenditures in the United States. Innovative telemedicine programs have been developed to help lessen the chronic illness burden, yet few have been developed to address comorbidity. Programs accommodating comorbidity are needed because most older adults suffer from two or more chronic illnesses. One of the most common and serious comorbid...

BACKGROUND Semantic, technical, content, criterion and conceptual equivalence must be examined in order to validate a psychological rating scale in a new cultural setting. Few validation studies have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa for scales seeking to detect depression in pregnant women. The aim of this study is to validate the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) as a screening i...

BACKGROUND Questionnaires may help in detecting and diagnosing anxiety disorders in primary care. However, since utility of these questionnaires in target populations is rarely studied, the Patient Health Questionnaire anxiety modules (PHQ) were evaluated for use as: a) a screener in high-risk patients, and/or b) a case finder for general practitioners (GPs) to assist in diagnosing anxiety diso...

PURPOSE To describe and evaluate somatic symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia, determine the relation between somatization syndromes and fibromyalgia, and evaluate symptom data in light of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 (DSM-5) criteria for somatic symptom disorder. METHODS We administered the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15), a measure of soma...

PURPOSE There is currently little information about rates of positive maternal depression screens immediately after delivery; rather, most studies have assessed the prevalence of major depression between 1 and 6 months postpartum. This study investigated the rate of positive 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) surveys within 1 to 2 days after delivery. METHODS A retrospective chart re...

BACKGROUND Despite recognition of the burden of disease due to mood disorders in low- and middle-income countries, there is a lack of consensus on best practices for detecting depression. Self-report screening tools, such as the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), require modification for low literacy populations and to assure cultural and clinical validity. An alternative approach is to empl...