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Validated Tools for Assessing Anxiety and Depression in Nurses: A Systematic Review
Gabriel Reyes Rodríguez1, Leticia Cuellar-Pompa2, Natalia Rodríguez Novo3
1Nursing Department, Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, 38010 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
Background:
Nurses experience substantial anxiety and depression; robust, validated instruments are needed. We aimed to identify tools used to assess these conditions in nurses.
Methods:
A systematic review was conducted in December 2024 and registered in OSF and PROSPERO. MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched for quantitative studies (2014-2024) in English/Spanish that included nurses only and used standardized measures. Two reviewers screened and extracted the data; quality was appraised with JBI checklists, narrative synthesis only.
Results:
Twenty-two studies (n = 10,710 nurses) met the criteria. Most were cross-sectional with non-probability sampling; the overall risk of bias was moderate in 19 studies and high in 3. The most frequently used instruments were PHQ-9, GAD-7, GHQ-28, and BDI; across versions, PHQ (PHQ-2/PHQ-9) predominated. Heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis.
Discussion:
The available tools support routine screening in nursing populations, but reliance on self-reports and scarce formal cross-cultural validation in practicing nurses limit inference and generalizability.
Conclusions:
Screening programs in nursing should pair brief self-report instruments with objective indicators and standardized protocols; future studies should prioritize contextualized validation and robust longitudinal designs.
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