Nielsen A C, Williams T A
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1980 Sep;37(9):999-1004. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1980.01780220037003.
Previous studies of medical outpatients have documented a high prevalence of depression that is often unrecognized by primary physicians. However, the subjective methodologies of most of these studies limit their quantitative and comparative usefulness. By contrast, in the present study, 526 medical outpatients completed a self-report questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Questionnaire results were calibrated by psychiatric interviews of a subsample of 41 patients. The prevalence of depression was 12.2% when at least mild depression was used as a criterion; the rate for moderate depression was 5.5%, and the rate for severe, probably "psychotic," depression was 0.6%. A review of medical charts showed that primary physicians failed to diagnose about 50% of both depressed and otherwise impaired patients. The BDI was shown to be a sensitive screening test; its use is advocated to improve recognition of depression by primary physicians.
以往对门诊患者的研究记录了抑郁症的高患病率，而初级医生往往未能识别出这些患者。然而，这些研究大多采用主观方法，限制了其在定量和比较方面的实用性。相比之下，在本研究中，526名门诊患者完成了一份自我报告问卷——贝克抑郁量表（BDI）。通过对41名患者的子样本进行精神科访谈，对问卷结果进行了校准。以至少轻度抑郁为标准时，抑郁症患病率为12.2%；中度抑郁症患病率为5.5%，重度、可能为“精神病性”抑郁症的患病率为0.6%。对病历的审查表明，初级医生未能诊断出约50%的抑郁症患者以及其他有功能障碍的患者。BDI被证明是一种敏感的筛查测试；提倡使用该量表以提高初级医生对抑郁症的识别能力。
