Efficiency of Screening for Depression in Cancer Patients Receiving Radiotherapy

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• Assess the feasibility of a screening procedure for major depression in cancer patients undergoing definitive or palliative radiotherapy.

Secondary

• Establish the rates of major depression identified through diagnostic telephone interviews.
• Estimate the false negative rate (1-sensitivity) and false positive rate (1-specificity) of the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the 25-item Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25).
• Compare the false negative rate of 2 items addressing mood disturbance on the PHQ-9 relative to all 9-items on the PHQ-9 and to the HSCL-25.
• Examine the sensitivity to changes in depression severity of the PHQ-9, the HSCL-25, and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) .
• Correlate both depressive symptoms and major depression in terms of sociodemographic and clinical variables.
• Establish the nature and adequacy of existing care, patient preferences, treatment availability, and barriers to depression treatment utilization for patients identified with major depression using the Assessment of Mental Health Services and Barriers to Care.
• Assess rates of continued elevations of depressive symptoms, seeking and receipt of care, and barriers to care at follow-up in these patients.
• Examine the differences in study objectives based on institution characteristics with regard to existing psychosocial services that are provided on-site and integrated in cancer care.