Sensitivity and specificity of observer and self-report questionnaires in major and minor depression following myocardial infarction.

This study evaluated screening abilities of self-report questionnaires for depression in first myocardial infarction (MI) patients. One month post-MI, 206 patients with first MI were screened for major and minor depression using the 90-item Symptom Check List (SCL-90), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (Ham-D). The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV criteria was used as the gold standard. Sensitivity and specificity for different cutoff points, using relative operating characteristics curves, were assessed. The internal consistency for all scales was good. When screening for major and minor depression, the optimal cutoff scores are lower than those for screening major depression only. The SCL-90, BDI, HADS, and Ham-D proved to have acceptable abilities for screening post-MI major and minor depression.