Beck Depression Inventory in the detection of depression among neurological inpatients

The validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was assessed in a group of 150 neurological inpatients using Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis and DSM-III-R as external criterion. As regards depressive disorders as a whole, it was found that the best trade-off between sensitivity and specificity was the cutoff score of 20. The discriminating ability of the BDI for major depressive disorder was quite satisfactory at the cutoff score of 29 contrary to the dysthymic disorder in which the discriminating power of the BDI was not acceptable. In conclusion, the use of the BDI in neurological settings is useful with cutoff scores depending on the research purposes.