Screening for psychiatric disorders in a lymphoma out-patient population

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), a four-point, 14-item self-assessment questionnaire, was tested as a screening method for psychiatric disorders in a sample of 117 Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma consecutive out-patients. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed, giving the relationship between the true positive rate (sensitivity) and the false positive rate (1--specificity). This makes it possible to choose an optimal cut-off score that takes into account the costs and benefits of treatment of psychiatric disorders (mainly adjustment, depressive and anxiety disorders) in a lymphoma out-patient population. A cut-off point of 10 gave 84% sensitivity and 66% specificity. HADS appears in this study to be a well accepted, simple, sensitive and specific tool.