A 2-item screen for depression in rehabilitation inpatients

Objective: To generate a brief screening measure to assist frontline rehabilitation health care workers to rapidly and validly screen patients for depressive symptoms. Design: Case series. Setting: Inpatient rehabilitation unit. Participants: Five hundred patients (age, greater than or equal to60y) cognitively able to complete the outcome measure. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measure: The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). Results: Based on the strength of the correlation with the GDS total score, 5 items were selected for model development. A 2-item screen, consisting of items "downhearted and blue" and "worthless," correctly classified 78.4% of patients, with only 3.6% of patients having false-negative classifications. The 2-item screen did not differ significantly in its accuracy or predictive utility from the more inclusive models. Conclusions: The identified 2-item screening instrument may be an effective tool for health care staffs to use in their efforts to identify symptoms of depression in older adults on a rehabilitation unit. (C) 2005 by American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.