Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 19, 2026
Association Between Sleep Quality and Cognitive Symptoms in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder
Published on: April 26, 2024
The development of the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale (BEDS) to screen for depression in patients with advanced
Mari Lloyd-Williams1, Chris Shiels, Chris Dowrick
1Academic Palliative and Supportive Care Studies Group, Division of Primary Care, School of population, community and behavioural sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GB. mlw@liv.ac.uk
Background:
The development of a brief valid tool to screen for depression in patients with advanced cancer is important. This paper reports data on the psychometric properties of the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale.
Method:
Two hundred and forty six patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria completed the 10-item EDS and Present State Examination.
Results:
Factor extraction revealed 6 items from the ten item EDS. The most valid cut off for defining a case, using the PSE diagnosis as the "gold-standard", was a score of 6 out of 18 on the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale which gave a sensitivity of 72% and specificity of 83% with a PPV of 65.1% and NPV of 87.1%.
Conclusions:
The six item EDS is a brief and sensitive method of screening for depression in advanced cancer patients--this novel use of the Edinburgh depression scale may have a significant impact on the assessment and thus management of this distressing symptom.
