Assessing past treatment history: test-retest reliability of the Treatment Response to Antidepressant Questionnaire

Abstract

A reliable and valid instrument has yet to be developed that elicits antidepressant treatment history via patient interview. The goal of the present study was to establish the test-retest reliability of the Treatment Response to Antidepressant Questionnaire (TRAQ). The TRAQ is a semistructured interview that was designed to collect systematically information regarding previous antidepressant treatment, adequacy of trials, and nature of response. Fifty subjects who sought outpatient treatment as part of the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project participated in the study. Patients were interviewed initially by a psychologist, who administered the TRAQ. An average of 5 to 6 days later, a psychiatrist who was blind to the results of the initial evaluation readministered the TRAQ to each of these patients. Reliability of recall of antidepressant trials, trial adequacy, and nature of response were evaluated using the kappa statistic. The mean duration of the TRAQ interviews was 3.30 minutes (SD=2.03 minutes). The reliability of recall of antidepressant trials ranged from 0.81 to 0.95, with an overall kappa of 0.91. The kappa for trial adequacy, depending on the definition used, ranged from 0.72 to 0.84. The kappa for determining positive versus negative response was 0.72. Thus, the test-retest reliability of the TRAQ was found to be in the good to excellent range for each of the principal outcome measures. The TRAQ can be administered by non-MDs as a reliable measure for collecting standardized information regarding antidepressant treatment history via patient interview.