Concurrent validity of a telephone-administered version of the Gospel Oak instrument (including the SHORT-CARE)

The aim of the study was to establish the concurrent validity of a telephone-administered version of the survey measures utilized in the Gospel Oak studies, the core of which was the SHORT-CARE.

Comparisons were made between data obtained by administering the interview in its conventional, face-to-face form with those generated by conducting it by telephone.

A UK teaching hospital.

Elderly subjects of both sexes, recruited from geriatric and psychogeriatric day hospitals.

The Depression Diagnostic Scale, Dementia Diagnostic Scale and Organic Brain Syndrome scale (all taken from the SHORT-CARE) and the London Handicap Scale.

For depressive symptomatology, cognitive impairment, subjective memory impairment and handicap, intraclass correlations were 0.86, 0.89, 0.83 and 0.70, respectively. The kappa coefficient for agreement on case-level diagnosis of pervasive depression was 0.79.

These results indicate that the instrument is broadly reliable when administered by telephone.