Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire and AD8 Questionnaire for Screening Late-Life Depression in Communities

Yi-Chia Wei; Li-Yuan Huang; Chemin Lin; Yu-Chiau Shyu; Chih-Ken Chen

doi:10.2147/NDT.S298233

Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire and AD8 Questionnaire for Screening Late-Life Depression in Communities

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2021 Mar 9:17:747-755. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S298233. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Yi-Chia Wei^{1

2

3

4}, Li-Yuan Huang^{1

2

5}, Chemin Lin^{1

2

6}, Yu-Chiau Shyu^{1

7}, Chih-Ken Chen^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Community Medicine Research Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan.
² College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
³ Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan.
⁴ Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Nursing, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Nursing, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) presents with emotional and somatic symptoms and sometimes subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs). This study developed a collaborative method to integrate SCC assessment for evaluating late-life MDD.

Methods: Residents aged >50 years in the Community Medicine Research Center of Keelung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan during 2017-2018 were prospectively recruited in this study. The participants were asked to report their depressive tendency and SCCs using the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire (TDQ) and the AD8, respectively, and were administered psychiatric evaluation through the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). The participants were divided into elderly (age≥65 years) and older adult (age 50-65) groups. The MDD predictive powers were assessed using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses.

Results: Of the 118 enrolled participants (mean age: 64.81±4.99, female-to-male ratio: 1.62), 9, 21, and 88 were categorized as those with current MDD, past MDD, and non-MDD on the basis of the MINI results, respectively. After adjustments for age, sex, and sleep quality, the TDQ score (odds ratio: 1.152, p=0.003) and AD8 score (odds ratio: 1.710, p=0.020) were used individually to predict current MDD. Overall, the TDQ individually predicted current MDD well with area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.835 (p=0.001). However, in the elderly group (N=63), the TDQ score did not identify current MDD well (AUC: 0.780, p=0.063). After co-considering SCCs, the linear combination of the sum of the TDQ score and four folds of the AD8 score could effectively distinguished elderly people with current MDD from those without it (AUC: 0.875, p=0.013)-with the cutoff of the aforementioned combined score being ≥32.

Conclusion: The self-reported response to the TDQ is a feasible approach of identifying MDD in community-dwelling people. Combining TDQ and AD8 scores further improved depression detection in elderly people.

Keywords: AD8; Taiwanese Depression Questionnaires; geriatric depression; major depressive disorder; subjective cognitive complaint.

Grants and funding

This study was fund by Chang Memorial Hospital Research Project CRRPG2G0051, CRRPG2G0052, CRRPG2G0071, CRRPG2G0072, CLRPG2H0041 and CLRPG2L0051 to support designing the study and collecting of data.