Short Depression Screening Test for Patients with Epilepsy: CES-D with 10 Items

Objective: Depression is the most common co-morbid psychiatric disorder in patients with epilepsy. Yet it remains under recognized and under-treated. For depression screening in this patient need to a convenient questionnaire for patients with epilepsy. This questionnaire has shown high sensitivity for depression screening in many studies. The center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) has been widely used in studies of late-life depression. The CES-D is easy to use in most settings. Method: Two groups of patients from two hospital centers were selected to participate in this study: the control group and the experimental group which included patients with approved diagnosis of epilepsy, regardless of any type of seizures. Then all the subjects went through a semi structural clinical interview for (SCID-I) DSM-IV by one psychiatrist. Consequently, all the patients completed the CES-D 10 items questionnaire along with the interview. In the two groups, the CESD scale cut-off point was obtained using ROC analysis. Results: The optimal cut-off score of CES-D in the both group was ≥3. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive predicted values in the epileptic group were 86.4%, 55.3%and 60% ; and sensitivity, specificity, and positive predicted values in the control group were 72.7% ,68.6%, 38.3% respectively. Conclusion: It appears that CES-D 10 items is an appropriate tool for screening patients with epilepsy, particularly if the multi-stage screening system is used with other methods.