Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to submit your manuscript to SPPS

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Assessment
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
1073191108320415v1
16/1/43    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Olden, M.
Right arrow Articles by Breitbart, W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Olden, M.
Right arrow Articles by Breitbart, W.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
Medline Plus Health Information
*Cancer
*Cancer--Living with Cancer
*Depression
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

Measuring Depression at the End of Life: Is the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale a Valid Instrument?

Megan Olden*, Barry Rosenfeld, Hayley Pessin, and William Breitbart

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: olden{at}fordham.edu.


  Abstract
Depression at the end of life is a common mental health issue with serious implications for quality of life and decision making. This study investigated the reliability and validity of one of the most frequently used measures of depression, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) in 422 patients with terminal cancer admitted to a palliative care hospital. The HAM-D demonstrated high reliability and concurrent validity with depression diagnosis, based on Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders, non-patient research version (SCID-I/NP Depression Module). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses generated an area under the curve of .91, indicating high sensitivity and specificity. The HAM-D strongly correlated with several measures of distress (e.g., hopelessness, desire for hastened death, and suicidal ideation). Factor analysis generated 4 factors (anxiety, depressed mood, insomnia, and somatic symptoms), accounting for 42% of the variance. Implications for assessing depression in this population are discussed.

First published on August 1, 2008, doi:10.1177/1073191108320415

Assessment 2009;16:43.

A more recent version of this article appeared on March 1, 2009

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?