The value of distinct depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) to differentiate depression severity in cancer survivors: An item response approach.

Loek J Van Der Donk,Robbert Sanderman,K Annika Tovote,Esmée A Bickel,Joke Fleer,Maya J Schroevers,Wim P Krijnen

doi:10.1002/pon.5192

Loek J Van Der Donk, Robbert Sanderman + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5192

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Abstract

The value of distinct depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) to differentiate depression severity in cancer survivors: An item response approach.

Highlights

Depressive symptoms are common among cancer patients and may persist after finishing curative treatment
Whether or not to include somatic symptoms in the the focus on “depressed” versus “not depressed”,1,5 with a call for more research addressing the continuum of depression severity.[4]. Following these recommendations to focus on distinct depressive symptoms and the continuum of depression severity, we examined how distinct cognitive‐affective and somatic symptoms of depression are related to the continuum of depression severity and how these symptoms discriminate different levels of depression severity, using an item response approach
Polyserial correlations were computed to estimate the association between the nine items and the continuous overall latent depression trait (Table 1)

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Depressive symptoms are common among cancer patients and may persist after finishing curative treatment. It is well known that somatic symptoms of depression may overlap with symptoms of the illness and its treatment, hereby increasing the risk of false‐positive diagnoses.[1,2] Whether or not to include somatic symptoms in the the focus on “depressed” versus “not depressed”,1,5 with a call for more research addressing the continuum of depression severity.[4]. We used data collected during routinely depression screening in clinical practice, which was part of a larger intervention trial on the effectiveness of depression treatment among cancer survivors.[7] Patients were routinely screened on depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire‐9 (PHQ‐9). To examine how distinct symptoms discriminate different levels of depression severity, we plotted expected item scores against the expected values on the overall depression trait, in order to localize the most discriminative areas

| RESULTS

Key points

| DISCUSSION

| Study limitations