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The Depression Inventory Development Workgroup: A Collaborative, Empirically Driven Initiative to Develop a New

Anthony L Vaccarino¹, Kenneth R Evans¹, Amir H Kalali¹

¹Dr. Vaccarino is with Indoc Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Evans is with Indoc Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Kalali is with Quintiles Inc, San Diego, California, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, California, USA; Drs. Kennedy and Placenza are with University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Engelhardt is with Cronos Clinical Consulting Services, Lambertville, New Jersey, USA; Dr. Frey is with Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Mood Disorders Program and Women's Health Concerns Clinic, St. Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Greist is with Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Dr. Kobak is with Center for Telepsychology, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Dr. Lam is with Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Dr. MacQueen is with Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education, Department of Psychiatry, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Dr. Milev is with Department of Psychiatry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Ravindran is with Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Sheehan is with Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, Florida, USA; Dr. Sills was with OCBN, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Williams is with Columbia University, New York, New York, USA, and Medavante Inc., Trenton, New Jersey, USA.

Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience

|December 16, 2016

Summary

The Depression Inventory Development project created a reliable tool for measuring major depressive disorder symptoms in clinical trials. This iterative, collaborative approach ensures psychometric soundness for enhanced depression assessment.

Keywords:

Major depressive disorder depressive symptoms item response theory rating scales

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Area of Science:

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology
Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology

Background:

Major depressive disorder (MDD) requires precise measurement tools for clinical trials.
Existing scales may not fully capture the complexity of MDD symptoms.

Approach:

An iterative development process involving field testing and psychometric analysis.
Expert clinical and patient input to identify depression-relevant symptom clusters.
Evaluation of existing clinical scales using blinded pharmaceutical trial datasets.

Key Points:

The project focuses on developing a comprehensive and psychometrically sound measurement tool for MDD.
Third iteration of items assessed symptoms including anhedonia, cognition, fatigue, and anxiety.
An empirically driven and collaborative protocol guides item creation.

Conclusions:

The Depression Inventory Development initiative provides a robust foundation for creating and validating measurement tools for MDD.
The developed strategies can be applied to create measurement tools in other therapeutic areas.