Validation of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression in adults with epilepsy

Mood disorders represent a frequent psychiatric comorbidity among patients with epilepsy, having a major impact on their quality of life and contributing considerably to the global burden of the disease. The availability of standardized clinical instruments validated in populations with epilepsy has important implications in terms of diagnosis and treatment. This aimed to validate the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) in adult patients with epilepsy.

A consecutive sample of 120 adult outpatients with epilepsy was assessed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Inventory (MINI) Plus version 5.0.0 and the HRSD.

Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.824 for the 17-item version and 0.833 for the 21-item version. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.896 and 0.899, respectively, for the two versions. However, the HRSD-17 demonstrated the best psychometric properties compared to the HRSD-21 and, with a cutoff score of 6, showed a sensitivity of 94%, a specificity of 80%, a positive predictive value of 46%, and a negative predictive value of 99%.

The HRSD proved to be reliable and valid in the epilepsy setting and will stimulate further research in this area.