Identifying key parent-reported symptoms for detecting depression in high risk adolescents

Thapar, Ajay ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4589-8833, Hood, Kerenza ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5268-8631, Collishaw, Stephan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4296-820X, Hammerton, Gemma, Mars, Becky, Sellers, Ruth, Potter, Robert, Craddock, Nicholas John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2171-0610, Thapar, Anita ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3689-737X and Rice, Frances ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9484-1729 2016. Identifying key parent-reported symptoms for detecting depression in high risk adolescents. Psychiatry Research 242 , pp. 210-217. 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.05.025

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Abstract

The adolescent offspring of depressed parents are at heightened risk of developing early onset Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) yet are unlikely to access services. One solution involves asking parents about the adolescents’ symptoms in order to identify those in need of additional assessment. We aimed to identify a parsimonious combination of parent-reported symptoms that accurately detected offspring MDD. We used a multi-sample study comprising a development sample of 335 offspring of adults with recurrent MDD assessed on three occasions (mean age 12.4-14.8 years) and an independent validation sub-sample of 807 adolescents drawn from a general population cohort (mean age 13.1 years). Parent ratings of psychiatric symptoms in adolescent offspring were assessed using established questionnaires and analysed using multivariate regression. The best performing combination of symptoms was identified. Accuracy in detecting concurrent DSM-IV MDD diagnosis, assessed by direct adolescent and parent interviews, was compared to the well-established 13-item short Moods and Feelings Questionnaire (sMFQ) using ROC curve analysis. We identified a symptom combination of four items (concentration problems, anhedonia, worrying excessively and feeling unloved) which performed equivalently to the sMFQ both in the development dataset (combination C-index (mean)= 0.83; sMFQ C-index(mean)=0.84) and in the validation dataset (combination C-index= 0.82; sMFQ C-index=0.83). We concluded that a combination of four parent-reported mental health items performs equivalently to an established, longer depression questionnaire measure in detecting a diagnosis of adolescent major depressive disorder among offspring of parents with recurrent MDD and needs further evaluation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHRI)
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Screening; Major Depressive Disorder; ROC analysis; Adolescence; ALSPAC
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0165-1781
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 October 2016
Date of Acceptance:	18 May 2016
Last Modified:	14 Nov 2023 16:33
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/95567

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