Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Depressive disorders are a public health problem in developing countries. Access to valid and reliable screening tool is needed to identify geriatric depression. Aims & Objectives: To validate Gujarati version of geriatric depression scale -15 (GDS-15) as a screening instrument to identify geriatric Depression in elderly medical patients.
Materials and Methods: This is a hospital based cross -sectional study. 200 Gujarati elderly patients (>65 years) attending the medical out patients department, unaware about their mental health status, were selected and Gujarati GDS-15 was administered. Then all patients were interviewed by a psychiatrist (blind to their GDS-15 scores). DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for major depression were used. Various thresholds of the GDS-15 were compared against the standards of the DSM-IV. A Receiver operator characteristic curve was drawn to obtain the best threshold value. Internal reliability of GDS-15 was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients.
Results: 33.5% (67/200) elderly patients satisfied DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Major Depression. The optimal threshold for the GDS-15 was 7.5 with a sensitivity of 86.6% and a specificity of 73.3%. The area under the curve was 0.877. Cronbach’s alpha of the total scores was 0.806. Conclusion: The Gujarati GDS-15 has good properties as screening instruments for major depression in Gujarati elderly medical patients, as presented in our findings.