A Spanish version of the geriatric depression scale in Mexican-American elders.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to establish the sensitivity of a Spanish translation of the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-S) in a sample of 41 elderly Mexican-American psychiatric patients with a diagnosis of depressive disorders.
METHOD: Utilizing the reverse translation technique and bilingual Mexican-American psychiatrists as evaluators, patients with DSM-III-R diagnoses of affective disorder who were sequential admissions to an inpatient psychiatric unit were enrolled in the study. The GDS-S was administered by trained interviewers within 2-4 weeks of admission to 28 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 13 patients with other depressive disorders (ODD). No other screening instruments for depressive symptoms were used.
RESULTS: Using the original cut-scores of GDS, the sensitivity was 39% in patients with MDD and 77% in patients with ODD. When a revised cut-score of 4 and above was identified as reflective of depressive symptoms, the sensitivity improved to 75% for patients with MDD and 85% for patients with ODD. Because there were no true negatives, specificity was not determined.
CONCLUSIONS: The GDS-S may have limited value in screening community-resident Mexican-American elders for depressive symptoms unless they have significant medical problems which limit their function and are associated with a dysthymic disorder. Screening instruments for depression which include neurovegetative or somatic items may be a better choice in this population.