Screening for Mental Health Problems among Patients with Substance Use Disorders: Preliminary Findings on the Validation of a Self-Assessment Instrument

Abstract

We conducted a preliminary study on the validation of the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ) among patients seeking treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs). We assessed 76 patients with SUDs, using the PDSQ, followed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated. Overall, the psychometric properties identified with the PDSQ in patients with SUDs differed from those found in psychiatric outpatient populations. The ROC curves were calculated for major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. The areas under the curves were 0.86 (95% CI, 0.77 to 0.95; P < 0.001), 0.79 (95% CI, 0.68 to 0.90; P < 0.001), and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.51 to 0.82; P = 0.05), respectively. The use of the PDSQ to screen for other psychiatric disorders in populations with SUDs is promising but requires larger validation studies to provide data on its psychometric properties and inform the choice of cut-off scores for this population.