Assessment of depression in medical patients: A systematic review of the utility of the Beck Depression Inventory-II

• Main Authors: Yuan-Pang Wang, Clarice Gorenstein
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculdade de Medicina / USP 2013-09-01
• Series: Clinics
• Subjects: Beck Depression Inventory; Depression; Medical Illness; Psychometric Scale; Screening; Validation Study
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1807-59322013000901274&lng=en&tlng=en

To perform a systematic review of the utility of the Beck Depression Inventory for detecting depression in medical settings, this article focuses on the revised version of the scale (Beck Depression Inventory-II), which was reformulated according to the DSM-IV criteria for major depression. We examined relevant investigations with the Beck Depression Inventory-II for measuring depression in medical settings to provide guidelines for practicing clinicians. Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria seventy articles were retained. Validation studies of the Beck Depression Inventory-II, in both primary care and hospital settings, were found for clinics of cardiology, neurology, obstetrics, brain injury, nephrology, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, oncology, and infectious disease. The Beck Depression Inventory-II showed high reliability and good correlation with measures of depression and anxiety. Its threshold for detecting depression varied according to the type of patients, suggesting the need for adjusted cut-off points. The somatic and cognitive-affective dimension described the latent structure of the instrument. The Beck Depression Inventory-II can be easily adapted in most clinical conditions for detecting major depression and recommending an appropriate intervention. Although this scale represents a sound path for detecting depression in patients with medical conditions, the clinician should seek evidence for how to interpret the score before using the Beck Depression Inventory-II to make clinical decisions.