A Collateral Source Version of the Geriatric Depression Rating Scale

Area of Science:

• Geriatric Psychiatry
• Psychometric Assessment
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Depression is common in older adults.
• Accurate depression screening is crucial for geriatric patients.
• Patient self-reports may not always capture the full clinical picture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of a collateral source version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (CS-GDS) in assessing depression in geriatric patients.
• To compare the diagnostic agreement between patient-completed GDS, CS-GDS, and psychiatric diagnoses.

Main Methods:

• 194 geriatric patients completed the GDS.
• Collateral sources completed the CS-GDS for each patient.
• Results were compared against blind, prospective diagnoses by geriatric psychiatrists.
• Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed.

Main Results:

• Collateral sources reported significantly more depression symptoms (28/30) than patients.
• Good agreement was observed between clinical diagnoses and both GDS and CS-GDS.
• The CS-GDS demonstrated limited specificity and poor positive predictive value at established GDS cutoff scores.

Conclusions:

• The CS-GDS may capture more symptoms than patient self-reports in geriatric depression assessment.
• Despite good overall agreement, the CS-GDS requires further validation for clinical diagnostic use due to specificity limitations.
• Integrating collateral information can enhance geriatric depression screening but requires careful interpretation.