Is the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) a valid tool for identifying psychiatric disorder or depression in Dutch subjects?
The HADS is appropriate for screening but not for definitive diagnosis of psychiatric disorders or depression due to its moderate positive predictive value.
The moderate PPV suggests that the HADS is best used as a screening questionnaire and not as a 'case-identifier' for psychiatric disorder or depression.
SPINHOVEN et al. (Sat,) studied this question.