Department of Psychology, Temple University, 1701 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19122, United States.
Department of Psychology, Temple University, 1701 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19122, United States.
J Affect Disord. 2020 Dec 1;277:908-913. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.067. Epub 2020 Sep 2.
Depression and other psychopathology are often assessed retrospectively. Few studies have evaluated the validity of these reports by comparing prospectively-assessed symptoms to retrospective reports during the same time period.
This study utilized a subset of participants (n = 68) from the Oregon Adolescent Depression Project who completed at least one mailer assessment of depressive symptoms during a retrospectively-reported depressive episode. Participants completed up to seven mailer assessments of depression and suicidal ideation and diagnostic assessments that included retrospectively-reported depressive episodes that coincided with the mailer assessments.
Multilevel linear models examined differences in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation during and between retrospectively-reported depressive episodes. Results showed that individuals reported significantly higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation for retrospectively-reported depressive episodes compared to when they were not in depressive episodes. In addition, the average level of depressive symptoms endorsed during retrospectively-reported depressive episodes reached established clinical cut-offs.
Although we were able to determine whether symptoms during retrospectively-reported depressive episodes approached clinical cut-offs, we were unable to examine whether symptoms met criteria for depressive episodes. Additionally, we could not examine whether episode severity related to recall ability, and other forms of psychopathology were not assessed.
These findings provide critical evidence for the validity of retrospectively-reported depressive episodes. Future research should examine whether these findings generalize across varying recall periods and retrospective assessments for other psychopathology.
抑郁和其他精神病理学通常是回顾性评估的。很少有研究通过在同一时期内将前瞻性评估的症状与回顾性报告进行比较来评估这些报告的有效性。
本研究利用俄勒冈青少年抑郁项目的一部分参与者（n=68），他们在回顾性报告的抑郁发作期间至少完成了一次邮件评估抑郁症状。参与者完成了多达七次关于抑郁和自杀意念的邮件评估，以及包括与邮件评估同时发生的回顾性报告的抑郁发作的诊断评估。
多层次线性模型检查了回顾性报告的抑郁发作期间和期间的抑郁症状和自杀意念的差异。结果表明，与不在抑郁发作期间相比，个体报告的回顾性报告的抑郁发作期间的抑郁和自杀意念水平显著更高。此外，在回顾性报告的抑郁发作期间，报告的抑郁症状的平均水平达到了既定的临床截止值。
尽管我们能够确定回顾性报告的抑郁发作期间的症状是否接近临床截止值，但我们无法检查症状是否符合抑郁发作的标准。此外，我们无法检查发作严重程度是否与回忆能力有关，也没有评估其他形式的精神病理学。
这些发现为回顾性报告的抑郁发作的有效性提供了重要证据。未来的研究应检查这些发现是否适用于其他精神病理学的不同回忆期和回顾性评估。
