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Psychometric properties of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale in multiple sclerosis

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Abstract

Background

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is frequently associated with depressive symptoms and major depression.

Objective

We assessed psychometric properties of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS, 17-item version) for assessing depressive symptomatology in a sample of MS patients.

Methods

Seventy patients (aged 43.3 ± 10.3 years) completed the HDRS and a thorough clinical and neuropsychological assessment, including diagnosis of major depression according to the established clinical criteria.

Results

HDRS was easy to administer and acceptable, and showed fair internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.8). The HDRS showed good convergent validity with respect to neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) subdomain of depression (r rho = .85) and good divergent validity with respect to remaining NPI subdomains (r rho < .30). Moreover, HDRS’s total score correlated moderately with functional disability and apathetic symptomatology, and poorly with general cognitive status. Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis demonstrated that a cutoff >14.5 can identify clinically relevant depressive symptoms with good sensitivity (93 %) and specificity (97 %) with respect to the diagnosis of major depression. Such a cutoff identified clinically relevant depressive symptoms in 42 % of our MS sample, whereas 44.2 % patients met established clinical criteria for major depression.

Conclusion

The HDRS can be considered as an easy, reliable, and valid tool to assess depressive symptomatology for clinical and research purposes in non-demented MS patients.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Standard

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the Declaration of Helsinki 1964 and was approved by the local ethics committee.

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Second University of Naples, Viale Ellittico, 31, Caserta, Italy

    Simona Raimo, Luigi Trojano, Dario Grossi & Gabriella Santangelo

  2. Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, Scientific Institute of Telese Terme, Telese Terme, Italy

    Luigi Trojano

  3. Institute of Neurology San G. Moscati Hospital, Avellino, Italy

    Daniele Spitaleri & Vittorio Petretta

  4. IDC Hermitage Capodimonte, Naples, Italy

    Gabriella Santangelo

Authors
  1. Simona Raimo
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  2. Luigi Trojano
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  3. Daniele Spitaleri
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  4. Vittorio Petretta
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  5. Dario Grossi
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  6. Gabriella Santangelo
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Correspondence to Luigi Trojano.

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Raimo, S., Trojano, L., Spitaleri, D. et al. Psychometric properties of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale in multiple sclerosis. Qual Life Res 24, 1973–1980 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-015-0940-8

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