Use of brief psychiatric screening measures in a primary care sample

Patients seen in primary medical clinics report higher rates of major depre ssion [Perez-Stable et at, 1990: Arch Intern Med 15:1083-1088] and panic di sorder [Sherbourne et al., 1996b: Yon Korff al., 1987: Arch Gen Psychiatry 44:152-156] than the general population. Primary care staff therefore need efficient methods of identifying patients with psychiatric disorders. The c urrent study evaluates the use of several brief psychiatric screening measu res for identifying patients with major depression and/or anxiety disorders . Participants were 213 primary care patients who received the Center for E pidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and two new instruments, the Autonomic Nervous System Questionnaire (ANS) for assessing panic disorder and the Social Phobia Questionnaire (SP Q) for assessing social phobia. Participants received both the screening in struments and a structured diagnostic interview. Results suggest that the C ES-D is a useful measure for detecting psychopathology, bat it is not parti cularly specific to depression, the ANS was a highly sensitive and reasonab ly specific measure for panic disorder, and the SPQ was reasonably sensitiv e and specific for social phobia. The BAI was a relatively poor screening m easure that added no significant information beyond the other measures. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.