Development of the Korean version of the Geriatric Depression Scale and its short form among elderly psychiatric patients.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic validity of the Korean version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-K) and its short form among elderly psychiatric patients.

METHOD

After three preliminary trials, the authors translated the GDS, including the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (SGDS) into Korean. The GDS-K, the Korean version of the SGDS (SGDS-K), Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRS-D), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) were administered to 154 elderly psychiatric patients. In addition, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS-III-R) was administered independently to diagnose DSM-III-R major depression. Reliability and validity test, optimal cutoff point estimation, and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis were performed to investigate the diagnostic validity of the GDS-K and SGDS-K.

RESULTS

Internal consistency-reliability and concurrent validity of the GDS-K and SGDS-K associated with other depression scales (HRS-D, CES-D) were excellent. Content validity and discriminant validity, which differentiate DSM-III-R major depression from nonmajor depression was also good. We suggest a score of 16 as the optimal cutoff point of GDS-K for screening DSM-III-R major depression among clinical populations and a score of 8 as optimal cutoff score of SGDS-K. ROC curve analysis indicated high diagnostic validity for both GDS-K and SGDS-K in assessing DSM-III-R major depression. Moreover, we found that the GDS-K and SGDS-K were highly correlated (r=.9522). This finding suggests that the SGDS-K can be used as an adequate substitute for the GDS-K.

CONCLUSION

The GDS-K and SGDS-K proved valid and reliable case-finding tools for screening DSM-III-R major depression among the elderly psychiatric patients in Korea. The relatively high cutoff points of both the GDS-K and SGDS-K require further evaluation from the viewpoint of culturally determined response style in elderly Koreans.