Revisiting depression in palliative care settings: the need to focus on clinical utility over validity

To review the literature on depression in palliative care patients to identify implications for development of clinical practice and individual patient care.

A qualitative review of depression prevalence studies in palliative care settings. We explore the utility of existing prevalence studies for clinical practice through testing two hypotheses: that high prevalence rates are associated with increased risk factors in study samples, and that poor methodological quality of the studies artefactually inflate prevalence estimates. Eighteen studies were identified in the search and included in this review.

Risk factors may contribute to depression prevalence but through a complex interaction of factors making individual risk levels hard to determine. Measurement artefact cannot, alone, account for elevated levels of depression in this population but may contribute to imprecision. The importance of organic decline as a potential confounding variable is highlighted.

Future research into the causes and prevalence of depression should adopt longitudinal approaches using large samples, and consider the impact of organic disorder as an important confounding factor. Clinical practice and care of individual patients may be better supported by development of a prognostic index considering the predictive power of depressive symptoms and risk factors on well-being.