Introduction: Depression is a significant symptom for approximately one in four palliative care patients. This study was carried out to investigate the performance of 3 screening tools.
Method: Patients were asked to verbally rate their mood on a scale of 0-10; to respond ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ to the question ‘‘Are you depressed?’’, and complete the Edinburgh depression scale and interviewed using a semistructured clinical interview according to DSM IV criteria.
Results: Complete data was available for 74 patients. For the single question, a ‘yes’ answer had a sensitivity of 55% and specificity 74%. The Edinburgh depression scale at a cut-off point of I13 had a sensitivity of 70% and specificity of 80%. The verbal mood item with a cut-off point of 13 had a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 43%.
Conclusions The Edinburgh depression scale proved the most reliable instrument for detecting clinical depression in palliative care patients.