Premium
Validity of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist‐25 amongst HIV‐positive pregnant women in Tanzania
Author(s) -
Kaaya S. F.,
Fawzi M. C. S.,
Mbwambo J. K.,
Lee B.,
Msamanga G. I.,
Fawzi W.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0447.2002.01205.x
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , psychiatry , anxiety , medicine , checklist , clinical psychology , context (archaeology) , discriminant validity , mental health , psychology , internal consistency , psychometrics , paleontology , biology , economics , cognitive psychology , macroeconomics
Objective: To validate the Hopkins Symptom Checklist‐25 (HSCL‐25) for use as a depression screen amongst human immuno‐deficiency virus (HIV) positive pregnant women. Method: Amongst 903 (mean age 24.8 years) HIV‐positive pregnant women, a two‐phased design included measures for health‐related quality of life, perceived social support, and the HSCL‐25 screen for depressive (HSCL‐15 subscale) and anxiety symptoms. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐IV (SCID) was independently administered on a stratified random subsample. Results: Internal consistency of the HSCL‐25 (alpha 0.93) and HSCL‐15 (alpha 0.9) was adequate, with expected findings demonstrated in discriminant validity analysis. A depression‐anxiety construct explained nearly 40% of the variance. Eight individual HSCL‐25 items demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) greater than 0.6 for DSM‐IV major depression and the HSCL‐25 and HSCL‐revised had an optimal depression cut‐off score of 1.06 and 1.03 for the HSCL‐15. Conclusion: The HSCL‐25 demonstrated utility as a screen for depression; its inability to gauge severity of symptoms in this cultural context is discussed.