[Validation of the Turkish version of the mood disorder questionnaire for screening bipolar disorders]

The aims of the study were to validate the Turkish version of the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) as a screening tool and to determine its optimum cut-off value for bipolar disorder.

Validation of the Turkish version of the MDQ was conducted on a sample of 309 consecutive patients who attended the psychiatry outpatient unit of 2 different university hospitals. The Structured Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID) was used as a gold standard test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate test performance of the MDQ.

In all, 36 (11.7%) patients received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (type I and II, and bipolar disorder not otherwise specified), 185 (86.1%) were diagnosed as having at least one Axis I psychiatric disorder other than bipolar disorder, and 7 (2.2%) had no psychiatric disorder according to SCID results. Sensitivity and specificity results indicated that the best Turkish MDQ cut-off point was 7 (sensitivity: 0.64; specificity: 0.77), the cut-off point 5 had 0.81 sensitivity and 0.53 specificity, and the cut-off 6 had 0.75 sensitivity and 0.63 specificity.

The Turkish MDQ has satisfactory psychometric properties for screening bipolar disorder. The psychometric properties of the Turkish MDQ and its ease of use make it a useful tool for screening bipolar disorders, though further population-based research is required to confirm these results.