Depressive symptoms in persons with acute coronary syndrome: Specific symptom scales and prognosis

Latent structure of the Hospital Anxiety And Depression Scale: A 10-year systematic review

“…However, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was created specifically to accomplish this task and to assess possible and probable cases of anxiety and depression in non-psychiatric hospital outpatients (4). The HADS is an important psychometric tool in the assessment of individuals with somatic illnesses, notably for coronary heart disease patients, predicting cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (5,6). The 14-item HADS is composed of two 7-item subscales, the HADS-A and HADS-D, intended to measure mutually exclusive levels of anxiety and depression, respectively.…”

Exhaustion, depression and hopelessness in cardiac patients: a unidimensional hierarchy of symptoms revealed by Mokken scaling

“…For example, it is possible that depressive symptoms only increase cardiovascular risk once they go beyond symptoms of fatigue to symptoms more indicative of depressed mood or anhedonia, or perhaps when moving beyond depression to hopelessness. 13,23 Such a tipping point would also give interventions to improve prognosis a definite target, rather than a reduction in an overall scale score by a set number of points. While interventions have been demonstrated to reduce symptoms of depression in cardiac patients, 21,24 it is unclear which symptoms were reduced as total scale scores of non-hierarchical scales have heretofore been adopted as outcome measures.…”

“…15 One item, which assessed suicidality, was omitted due to concerns over impact on response rates. 13,16 The BDI-FS items focus on cognitive symptoms of depression, and are scored on a four-point answer option.…”

“…13 The sample consisted of 430 persons with myocardial infarction or unstable angina. Participants completed measures during hospitalisation for their acute event.…”

“…At higher levels of scaling, the scale splits into specific symptom scales, but these also do not support the notion of two separate exhaustion and depression dimensions. 13 …”