Psychometric evaluation of a brief geriatric depression screen

This article is a psychometric evaluation of the experimental Geriatric and Extended Careline Depression Screen (GEDS) for geriatric nursing care residents. The GEDS is a five-item depression screen based on an abbreviated version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). A total sample of 91 male residents over the age of 60 were recruited from a Veterans Administration Nursing Home Care Unit. The Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (GDS-SF) was used as a gold standard test to examine the convergent validity of the GEDS. The Discriminant Trait Inventory was used to assess divergent validity and the confounding effects of method variance in this research design. Test-retest reliability, redundance and omission in item content validity were systematically evaluated. A receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was used to identify the most effective cut-off score for clinical selection. Reliability was significant, but moderate. Convergent validity with the Geriatric Depression Scale was high. No items were identified as redundant. A review of literature suggested that irritability is an important factor of geriatric depression that had not been included in the original screen. The inclusion of an experimental item to assess irritability, however, did not improve the psychometric properties of the GEDS.