Versión española del cuestionario de Yesavage abreviado (GDS) para el despistaje de depresión en mayores de 65 años: Adaptación y validación

Abstract

Background: there are few questionnaires of depression screening appropriately validated in Spanish language. Objective: to adapt and to validate to the Spanish language the abbreviated version of the Geriatric Depression Scale of Yessavage (GDS) for their use in the one sieved of depressive dysfunctions in patients older than 65 years. Design, material and method: the study was carried out in the consultations of a health center, in three stages: in the first one, the questionnaire was translated and adapted to the Spanish language (GDL-VE). In a second phase, the doctor or the nurse applied the questionnaire to every patient individually. Finally, another investigator carried out each a semiestructurated interview, in a blind way, to determine the depression symptoms according to the approaches settled down in the ICE-10. Cognitive satate was also assesed, and the questionnaires of Montgomery-Asberg, Pfeiffer- VE, MEC, IQCODE-EV were passed, as the part of the questionnaire OARS-MFAQ corresponding to the evaluation of the daily activities. The final result of this exploration was considered the gold standard for the diagnosis of depression, being the reference for the calculation of the sensibility, specificity and reasons of maximum verisimilitude for a positive and negative results of the test. Results: an adaptation from the GDS to the version GDS-GO was performed. Two hundred and forty-nine patients older than 65 years completed the study, with age of 74.3 on average, 67.5% of them were women and 65 were analphabet or with no studies. The intraobserver reliability was 0.95 and the interobserver was 0.65, with an internal consistency of the 0.99. An under curve area of 0.385 was obtained. The sensibility reached 81.1% and the specificity 76.7%, for a cut point of 5 or more. Conclusions: the parameters of reliability and validity for the adapted version of the questionnaire have been acceptable and similar to those of the original questionnaire. It is recommended to use a cut point of 5 or above to consider the existence of a depression.