RESEARCH ARTICLE
Diagnostic Accuracy of the Primary Care Screener for Affective Disorder (PC-SAD) in Primary Care
Angelo Picardi1, *, D.A Adler2, 3, 4, W.H Rogers2, I Lega1, M.P Zerella5, G Matteucci5, L Tarsitani5, M Caredda5, A Gigantesco1, M Biondi5, the SET-DEP Group
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 9
First Page: 164
Last Page: 170
Publisher ID: CPEMH-9-164
DOI: 10.2174/1745017901309010164
Article History:
Received Date: 20/12/2012Revision Received Date: 26/7/2013
Acceptance Date: 7/8/2013
Electronic publication date: 4/10/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Depression goes often unrecognised and untreated in non-psychiatric medical settings. Screening has recently gained acceptance as a first step towards improving depression recognition and management. The Primary Care Screener for Affective Disorders (PC-SAD) is a self-administered questionnaire to screen for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Dysthymic Disorder (Dys) which has a sophisticated scoring algorithm that confers several advantages. This study tested its performance against a ‘gold standard’ diagnostic interview in primary care.
Methods:
A total of 416 adults attending 13 urban general internal medicine primary care practices completed the PC-SAD. Of 409 who returned a valid PC-SAD, all those scoring positive (N=151) and a random sample (N=106) of those scoring negative were selected for a 3-month telephone follow-up assessment including the administration of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) by a psychiatrist who was masked to PC-SAD results.
Results:
Most selected patients (N=212) took part in the follow-up assessment. After adjustment for partial verification bias the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value for MDD were 90%, 83%, 51%, and 98%. For Dys, the corresponding figures were 78%, 79%, 8%, and 88%.
Conclusions:
While some study limitations suggest caution in interpreting our results, this study corroborated the diagnostic validity of the PC-SAD, although the low PPV may limit its usefulness with regard to Dys. Given its good psychometric properties and the short average administration time, the PC-SAD might be the screening instrument of choice in settings where the technology for computer automated scoring is available.
