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Comparison of the Accuracy of the 7-Item HADS Depression Subscale and 14-Item Total HADS for Screening for Major Depression: A Systematic Review and Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis

  • Y. Wu
  • , B. Levis
  • , F.M. Daray
  • , J.P.A. Ioannidis
  • , S.B. Patten
  • , P. Cuijpers
  • , R.C. Ziegelstein
  • , S. Gilbody
  • , F.H. Fischer
  • , S.Q. Fan
  • , Y. Sun
  • , C. He
  • , A. Krishnan
  • , D. Neupane
  • , P.M. Bhandari
  • , Z. Negeri
  • , K.E. Riehm
  • , D.B. Rice
  • , M. Azar
  • , X.W. Yan
  • M. Imran, M.J. Chiovitti, J.T. Boruff, D. McMillan, L.A. Kloda, S. Markham, M. Henry, Z. Ismail, C.G. Loiselle, N.D. Mitchell, S. Al-Adawi, K.R. Beck, A. Beraldi, C.N. Bernstein, B. Boye, N. Buel-Drabe, A. Bunevicius, C. Can*, G. Carter, C.K. Chen, G. Cheung, K. Clover, R.M. Conroy, G. Costa-Requena, D. Cukor, E. Dabscheck, J. De Souza, M. Downing, A. Feinstein, P.P. Ferentinos, Sebastian Köhler
*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review articlepeer-review

Abstract

The seven-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Depression subscale (HADS-D) and the total score of the 14-item HADS (HADS-T) are both used for major depression screening. Compared to the HADS-D, the HADS-T includes anxiety items and requires more time to complete. We compared the screening accuracy of the HADS-D and HADS-T for major depression detection. We conducted an individual participant data meta-analysis and fit bivariate random effects models to assess diagnostic accuracy among participants with both HADS-D and HADS-T scores. We identified optimal cutoffs, estimated sensitivity and specificity with 95% confidence intervals, and compared screening accuracy across paired cutoffs via two-stage and individual-level models. We used a 0.05 equivalence margin to assess equivalency in sensitivity and specificity. 20,700 participants (2,285 major depression cases) from 98 studies were included. Cutoffs of ≥7 for the HADS-D (sensitivity 0.79 [0.75, 0.83], specificity 0.78 [0.75, 0.80]) and ≥15 for the HADS-T (sensitivity 0.79 [0.76, 0.82], specificity 0.81 [0.78, 0.83]) minimized the distance to the top-left corner of the receiver operating characteristic curve. Across all sets of paired cutoffs evaluated, differences of sensitivity between HADS-T and HADS-D ranged from −0.05 to 0.01 (0.00 at paired optimal cutoffs), and differences of specificity were within 0.03 for all cutoffs (0.02–0.03). The pattern was similar among outpatients, although the HADS-T was slightly (not nonequivalently) more specific among inpatients. The accuracy of HADS-T was equivalent to the HADS-D for detecting major depression. In most settings, the shorter HADS-D would be preferred.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)95-114
Number of pages20
JournalPsychological Assessment
Volume35
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2023

Keywords

  • CANCER-PATIENTS
  • DETECTING DEPRESSION
  • HADS-D
  • HADS-T
  • HOSPITAL ANXIETY
  • INTERNATIONAL DIAGNOSTIC INTERVIEW
  • MENTAL-DISORDERS
  • PATIENT HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE-9
  • PSYCHIATRIC MORBIDITY
  • PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS
  • QUALITY-OF-LIFE
  • RATING-SCALES
  • depression screening
  • diagnostic accuracy
  • individual participant data meta-analysis
  • Individual participant data meta-analysis
  • Depression screening
  • Hads-t
  • Diagnostic accuracy
  • Hads-d

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