This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Mohr, D C Articles by Tasch, E S Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Mohr, D C Articles by Tasch, E S Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Screening for depression among patients with multiple sclerosis: two questions may be enough

University of California, San Francisco, VAMC, 4150 Clement St. (116-A), San Francisco, CA 94121, USA, dmohr{at}itsa.ucsf.edu

S L Hart

University of California, San Francisco, VAMC, 4150 Clement St. (116-A), San Francisco, CA 94121, USA

L Julian

University of California, San Francisco, VAMC, 4150 Clement St. (116-A), San Francisco, CA 94121, USA

E S Tasch

Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Group of Northern California, 900 Kiely Blvd., Main Bldg-3rd Floor, Santa Clara, CA 95051, USA

Background Depression among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) is common and has a significant impact on quality of life. As many as two-thirds of depressed MS patients receive no treatment for their depression. While guidelines for depression management suggest screening, the only validated screening tools are questionnaires, which have not been widely implemented in practice. This is the first study on the effectiveness of using two questions assessing mood and anhedonia (loss of interest or pleasure) in screening for major depressive disorder (MDD) in MS.

Methods MS patients under the care of neurologists were recruited from a large health maintenance organization (HMO). The MDD module of the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV and screening questions was administered.

Results Of the 260 participants, 26% met the criteria for MDD. Among patients with MDD, 67% received no anti-depressant medication. The MDD screen identified 99% (95% CI: 91-100%) of cases.

Discussion A brief, two question screen is reliable in identifying MS patients with MDD. This suggests that asking these two brief questions could identify almost all MS patients meeting MDD criteria, with minimal numbers of false positives.

Key Words: depression • multiple sclerosis • screening

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?