In the palliative care setting, accurate identification of depression is important to allow delivery of appropriate treatments.

– 1. To assess rates of depression in palliative care inpatients using the CSDD, comparing with formal clinical diagnosis based on diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) criteria;

– 2. To identify items of the CSDD that most distinguish depressive illness in a palliative care setting.

We measured rates of depression in patients admitted into a palliative care inpatient unit with the CSDD. DSM-IV clinical diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) was achieved using all available clinical information by an experienced independent rater. We calculated Cohen's Kappa to measure concordance between the CSDD and DSM-IV diagnosis.

We assessed 142 patients (56.3% male; mean age: 69.6 years), the majority of which had a cancer diagnosis (93.7%). 18.3% (n = 26) met DSM-IV criteria for MDD, while 12% scored ≥6 on the CSDD with 15 cases of depression common to these two methods (K = 0.65). Discriminant analysis identified five CSDD items that were especially distinguishing of MDD; sadness, loss of interest, pessimism, lack of reactivity to pleasant events and appetite loss. An abbreviated version of the CSDD, based on these 5 items, proved highly accurate in identifying DSM-IV MDD (AUC = 0.94), with sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 84% at a cut-off score ≥2.

There was good level of concordance between the CSDD and DSM-IV diagnosis of MDD. We identified five depressive symptoms that are especially discriminating for depression in palliative care patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.