Abstract

VEGA-DIENSTMAIER, Johann M. Construction of short versions of the Depressive Psychopathology Scale for screening of Major Depression and its psychometric features. Rev Neuropsiquiatr [online]. 2018, vol.81, n.3, pp.154-164. ISSN 0034-8597.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.20453/rnp.v81i3.3383.

Objectives: To select the best items, out of the 20 of the original Depressive Psychopathology Scale (DPS), in order to construct shorter versions to be used for Major Depression (MD) screening. Method: Using as a gold standards the diagnosis of MD according to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and a psychiatrist’s clinical diagnosis (PCD), the best item combination was determined searching the highest area under the ROC curve value (auROC). Results: The highest auROC value for the MD diagnosis according SCID, were obtained with a combination of 4 items (DPS-4): fatigue, mood reactivity, anhedonia, and sadness (auROC=0.9033); when considering the PCD, 6 items (DPS-6) were identified: the same 4 plus sleep disturbance and overweighed extremities (leaden paralysis) (auROC=0.8652). For SCID and PCD, the auROC of both short versions (DPS-4 and DPS-6) showed a non significant trend to be greater than those corresponding to 20-item DPS. Conclusions: The results suggest that MD screening can be done with shorter versions of DPS without losing its diagnostic efficacy.

Keywords : Depression; scale; validation; psychometrics.

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