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- Title
Performance of the SF-36 health survey in screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in an elderly female Swedish population.
- Authors
Silveira, E.; Taft, C.; Sundh, V.; Waern, M.; Palsson, S.; Steen, B.
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>To assess the sensitivity, specificity and predictive validity of suggested cut-off scores in the SF-36 mental health (MH) and mental component summary (MCS) in screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in a population sample of older Swedish women.<bold>Method: </bold>The sample comprised 586 randomly selected females aged 70-84 years who took part in an in-depth psychiatric examination. This provided the 'gold standard' against which the usefulness of SF-36 recommended thresholds for screening for depressive and anxiety disorders in older Swedish women was examined.<bold>Results: </bold>Based on DSM-III-R criteria, 69 women (12%) were diagnosed with depression (major depression, dysthymia and/or depression NOS) and 49 (8%) with generalised anxiety and panic disorders. The previously recommended MH and MCS cut-offs (i.e. 52 and 42) gave a specificity for diagnosis of depression of 92 and 82% and sensitivity of 58 and 71%, respectively. Both the MH and MCS were good predictors of depressive disorders but poor predictors of anxiety disorders.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>The study supports the predictive validity of suggested SF-36 MH and MCS cut-off scores in screening for depressive disorder but not for anxiety disorder in older women in Sweden.
- Subjects
SWEDEN; HEALTH surveys; DIAGNOSIS; MENTAL health; PANIC disorders; MENTAL depression
- Publication
Quality of Life Research, 2005, Vol 14, Issue 5, p1263
- ISSN
0962-9343
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1007/s11136-004-7753-5