Abstract The purpose of this research was to determine the efficacy of the depression section of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), as a screening tool on a psychiatric adolescent and young adult population. Method: The Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and the HADS were administered to 121 Major Depressive patients (according to DSM-III-R criteria. Results: The HADS had a sensitivity of 73.2% using 8 as a cutoff score and a sensitivity of 53.7% using 10 as a cutoff score. No significant ethnic differences or sex differences were noted, except for the BDI, where there was a significant difference in the mean test scores for males and females. Conclusions: The HADS is not a useful screening instrument for adolescent depression. There is a need for primary health care workers to have access to a brief, reliable depression rating scale for this age group.
Berard et al. (Sat,) studied this question.