Validation and calibration of the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) in Argentina

URTASUN, MARÍA; DARAY, FEDERICO MANUEL; TETI, GERMÁN LEANDRO; COPPOLILLO, FERNANDO; RUBINSTEIN, ADOLFO; ARAYA, RICARDO; IRAZOLA, VILMA

BMC PSYCHIATRY

BIOMED CENTRAL LTD

Lugar: LONDRES; Año: 2019 vol. 19

1471-244X

AbstractBackground: The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is a brief tool to assess the presence and severity ofdepressive symptoms. This study aimed to validate and calibrate the PHQ-9 to determine appropriate cut-off pointsfor different degrees of severity of depression in Argentina.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on an intentional sample of adult ambulatory care patients withdifferent degrees of severity of depression. All patients who completed the PHQ-9 were further interviewed by atrained clinician with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II(BDI-II). Reliability and validity tests, including receiver operating curve analysis, were performed.Results: One hundred sixty-nine patients were recruited with a mean age of 47.4 years (SD = 14.8), of whom 102were females (60.4%). The local PHQ-9 had high internal consistency (Cronbach?s alpha = 0.87) and satisfactoryconvergent validity with the BDI-II scale [Pearson?s correlation = 0.88 (p < 0.01)]. For the diagnosis of MajorDepressive Episode (MDE) according to the MINI, a PHQ-9 ≥ 8 was the optimal cut-off point found (sensitivity88.2%, specificity 86.6%, PPV 90.91%). The local version of PHQ-9 showed good ability to discriminate amongdepression severity categories according to the BDI-II scale. The best cut off points were 6?8 for mild cases, 9?14for moderate and 15 or more for severe depressive symptoms respectively.Conclusions: The Argentine version of the PHQ-9 questionnaire has shown acceptable validity and reliability forboth screening and severity assessment of depressive symptoms.Keywords: Depression, Patient health Questionnaire-9, Mini international neuropsychiatric interview, Psychometrics,Argentina, Screening instruments