DEPRESSION SCALE (DEPS) AMONG SUICIDE ATTEMPTERS

The Depression Scale (DEPS), a new screening instrument for detecting depression in primary health care, was compared with the Hamilton Depr ession Scale (HDS) among 50 suicide attempters. Using the HDS as a gol d standard, the positive and negative predictive values of the DEPS fo r the diagnosis of depression were 98% and 20%, respectively. The corr elation between the total HDS scores and the total DEPS scores was 0.6 0. The DEPS may help general practitioners to detect depression among suicide attempters, but it should not be used to exclude depression.