MIDAS Project Publication Abstracts
Zimmerman, M., Sheeran, T. Screening for principal versus comorbid
conditions in psychiatric outpatients with the Psychiatric Diagnostic
Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ). Psychological Assessment,
2005, 15, 110-114.
In examining the performance of screening scales, a distinction
should be made between principal and additional diagnoses. In Mental Health settings, diagnostic recognition should be adequate for the
principal disorders for which patients seek treatment (i.e., related
to the chief complaint), whereas the recognition of comorbid disorders
that are not the principal reason for seeking treatment may be problematic.
If a scale is an effective screening tool only for principal disorders,
and not for comorbid conditions, then its' clinical utility would
be limited. The Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ)
is a brief, psychometrically strong, self-report scale designed
to screen for the most common DSM-IV Axis I disorders encountered
in outpatient Mental Health settings. Previously we described the
overall diagnostic performance of the PDSQ in an outpatient setting.
In the present report we compared the performance of the PDSQ in
identifying principal and comorbid disorders. Seven hundred ninety-nine
psychiatric outpatients completed the PDSQ and were interviewed
with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. The sensitivity
and negative predictive values of the PDSQ subscales were similar
for principal and additional diagnoses.
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