Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Dec;20(4):215-23.
doi: 10.1002/mpr.351.

The psychometric properties of the K10 and K6 scales in screening for mood and anxiety disorders in the South African Stress and Health study

L S Andersen  1 , A Grimsrud, L Myer, D R Williams, D J Stein, S Seedat
Affiliations

The psychometric properties of the K10 and K6 scales in screening for mood and anxiety disorders in the South African Stress and Health study

L S Andersen et al. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2011 Dec.

Abstract

Emerging research has provided support for the use of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scales in developing countries; however, this research has yet to be extended to southern Africa. This study sought to evaluate the performance of the Kessler scales in screening for depression and anxiety disorders in the South African population. The scales along with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) were included in the South African Stress and Health study, a nationally representative household survey. The K10/K6 demonstrated moderate discriminating ability in detecting depression and anxiety disorders in the general population; evidenced by area under the receiver operating curves of 0.73 and 0.72 respectively. However, both scales failed to meet our acceptability criteria of high sensitivity and high positive predictive value. Examinations of differences in responding by race/ethnicity revealed that the K10/K6 [Kessler Psychological Distress Scale 10-item (K10) and the abbreviated six-item (K6)] had significantly lower discriminating ability with respect to depression and anxiety disorders among the Black group (0.71) than among the combined minority race/ethnic groups of White, Colored, and Indian/Asian (0.78; p = 0.016). The difference in time period assessed on the K10/K6 (past 30 days) versus the CIDI (past 12 months) was a notable limitation of this study. Additional validation studies using clinician diagnostic instruments are recommended.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
ROC curves for the K10 and K6 scores predicting any cases of 12‐month DSM‐IV depression and anxiety disorders.
Figure 2
Figure 2
ROC curves for the K10 scores predicting cases of 12‐month DSM‐IV depression and anxiety disorders.
Figure 3
Figure 3
ROC curves for the K6 scores predicting cases of 12‐month DSM‐IV depression and anxiety disorders.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Baggaley R.F., Ganaba R., Filippi V., Kere M., Marshall T., Sombie I., Storeng K.T., Patel V. (2007) Detecting depression after pregnancy: The validity of the 10 and K6 in Burkina Faso. Tropical Medicine & International Health, 12(10), 1225–1229, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3156.2007.01906.x - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baillie A.J. (2005) Predictive gender and education bias in Kessler's psychological distress scale (K10). Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40(9), 743–748, DOI: 10.1007/s00127-005-0935-9 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cairney J., Veldhuizen S., Wade T.J., Kurdyak P., Streiner D.L. (2007) Evaluation of 2 measures of psychological distress as screeners for depression in the general population. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 52(2), 111–120. - PubMed
    1. DeLong E.R., DeLong M., Clarke‐Pearson D.L. (1988) Comparing the areas under two or more correlated receiver operating characteristic curves: A nonparametric approach. Biometrics, 44(3), 837–845. - PubMed
    1. Fassaert T., De Wit M.A.S., Tuinebreijer W.C., Wouters H., Verhoeff A.P., Beekman A.T.F., Dekker J. (2009) Psychometric properties of an interviewer‐administered version of the Kessler Psychological Distress scale (K10) among Dutch, Moroccan, and Turkish respondents. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 18(3), 159–168, DOI: 10.1002/mpr.288 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms