[Development of a new screening instrument for geriatric depression. The depression in old age scale (DIA-S)]

The purpose of the study was to develop and validate the depression in old age scale (DIA-S). The DIA-S is a new screening scale for depression, which is comparable to the GDS-15 in terms of practicality but which is more appropriate for the use in geriatric patients.

The DIA-S and the GDS-15 were validated among a sample of n=331 geriatric inpatients (n=151 depressed subjects and n=180 not depressed subjects), using the Montgomery and Asperg Depression Rating Scale as gold standard criterion for depression. For the comparison of the two scales, item analysis (missing values, difficulty, discriminatory power) was considered as well as test performance (internal consistency, correlation with the MADRS, ROC curves, sensitivity, specificity).

All outcomes indicate a good psychometrical quality of the DIA-S. The new instrument showed a considerably higher discriminatory power for the items internal consistency and test specificity than the GDS-15.