E. Somoza et al., DIFFERENTIATING MAJOR DEPRESSION AND PANIC DISORDERS BY SELF-REPORT AND CLINICAL RATING-SCALES - ROC ANALYSIS AND INFORMATION-THEORY, Behaviour research and therapy, 32(7), 1994, pp. 771-782
The revised Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Cog
nition Checklist Depression and Anxiety subscales, revised Hamilton Ps
ychiatric Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD-R), and the revised Hamilt
on Anxiety Rating Scale were administered to 92 outpatients diagnosed
only with major depression disorders and 50 outpatients diagnosed only
with panic disorders. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analy
sis was used to evaluate each instrument's ability to discriminate the
two diagnostic groups. The optimum cut-off score for each scale was d
etermined as a function of prevalence by maximizing information gain.
The results indicated that the depression scales were better than the
anxiety scales in discriminating the two groups. The HRSD-R was superi
or to the other depression scales, whereas all the anxiety scales disp
layed similar discriminating power.