The development of the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale (BEDS) to screen for depression in patients with advanced cancer

Abstract

Background: The development of a brief valid tool to screen for depression in patients with advanced cancer is important. This paper reports data on the psychometric properties of the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale.

Method: Two hundred and forty six patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria completed the 10-item EDS and Present State Examination.

Results: Factor extraction revealed 6 items from the ten item EDS. The most valid cut off for defining a case, using the PSE diagnosis as the "gold-standard", was a score of 6 out of 18 on the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale which gave a sensitivity of 72% and specificity of 83% with a PPV of 65.1% and NPV of 87.1%.

Conclusions: The six item EDS is a brief and sensitive method of screening for depression in advanced cancer patients--this novel use of the Edinburgh depression scale may have a significant impact on the assessment and thus management of this distressing symptom.