Self-Rated Health and Long-Term Prognosis of Depression

This paper by Gunn and colleagues provides important longitudinal evidence of the importance of additional clinical information beyond what is assessed by the nine DSM depression symptoms in the PHQ-9. This provides another piece in a thread of evidence that reaches back to the Michigan Depression Project (1,2) extends through work by Arroll and colleagues in Auckland (3) and work with the REMIT tool for assessing depression recovery.(4) This is particularly important given the drive toward depression screening. The prognostic information from self-rated health can provide an important clinical indicator for the busy clinician.

Donald E. Nease, Jr., MD Associate Professor of Family Medicine University of Colorado - Denver

1. Coyne JC, Klinkman MS, Gallo SM, Schwenk TL. Short-term outcomes of detected and undetected depressed primary care patients and depressed psychiatric patients. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 1997;19(5):333-43.

2. Klinkman MS, Coyne JC, Gallo S, Schwenk TL. False positives, false negatives, and the validity of the diagnosis of major depression in primary care. Arch Fam Med. 1998;7(5):451-61.

3. Arroll, B., Goodyear-Smith, F., Kerse, N., Fishman, T., & Gunn, J. (2005). Effect of the addition of a "help" question to two screening questions on specificity for diagnosis of depression in general practice: diagnostic validity study. BMJ, 331(7521), 884.

4. Nease, D. E., Aikens, J. E., Klinkman, M. S., Kroenke, K., & Sen, A. (2011). Toward a more comprehensive assessment of depression remission: the Remission Evaluation and Mood Inventory Tool (REMIT). General Hospital Psychiatry, 33(3), 279-286.

Competing interests: ?? None declared