A multi-institutional study of depression in family practice

Depression among outpatients of three descriptively and geographically dissimilar family practice residency programs was studied. The Beck Depression Inventory, the Popoff Index of Depression, and the Multiscore Depression Inventory (MDI) were compared. Reliabilities of all three instruments were high, as were correlations among the instruments. The only significant differences among the three populations were on the social introversion and sad mood subscales of the MDI. Regression analyses were then performed to compute equivalent scores on the Beck Depression Inventory short form from the MDI and Popoff instruments. This allowed approximate conversion of scores to the four levels of severity of depression described by Beck and Beck. This study provides the first extensive normative data for family practice on these measures, thus providing family physicians with a comparison group appropriate for a family practice rather than a psychiatric population.