Is a patient‐administered depression rating scale valid for detecting cognitive deficits in patients with major depressive disorder?

Abstract

Aims: Although cognitive deficits are a common and potentially debilitating feature of major depressive disorder (MDD), such subjective declines in cognitive function are seldom validated by objective methods as a clinical routine. The aim of this study was to validate the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire (TDQ) for detecting cognitive deficits in a sample of drug-free patients with MDD. Methods:The subjects consisted of 40 wellcharacterized medication-free patients with MDD and 40 healthy controls. Clinical and neuropsychological assessments, including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised, the Continuous Performance Test, and the Finger-Tapping Test, were administered at the time of recruitment.Results: Factor analyses of the TDQ yielded three factors. Memory, attention and psychomotor performance were significantly poorer in patients with MDD. The performances of verbal and delayed memory of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised were correlated with the cognitive domains of the TDQ. Generalization of our results must be undertaken with caution considering the relatively small sample size, which could lead to increased b-error. Conclusion:Cognitive subdomains might be considered important for including in patient-administered questionnaires used to measure symptoms of MDD when developing a new scale.

Cognitive Performance in Non-Psychotic Non-Suicidal Unipolar Depressed Patients

“…Our results are in line with studies that have revealed changes in attention, verbal fluency, memory and psychomotor speed (Bashir, Khade, Kosaraju, Kumar, & Rani, 2013;Hueng et al, 2011;Kertzman et al, 2010;Lampe, Sitskoorn, & Heeren, 2004;Moniz, De Jesus, Pacheco, Gonçalves, & Viseu, 2016;Roca et al, 2015;Rohling, Green, Allen, & Iverson, 2002), with the exception that in our study the differences in memory were not statistically significant. Therefore, our first hypothesis (i.e., that individuals with depression will perform more poorly than individuals without depression) was only partially confirmed.…”

Computerized Finger Tapping Task in Adult Unipolar Depressed Patients and Healthy Subjects: Influence of Age, Gender, Education, and Hand Dominance

“…This may be explained by differential effects of fatigue (Peters, 1980). Also comma as expected (Bashir et al, 2013;Hill et al, 2004;Hueng et al, 2011;Kertzman et al, 2010;Lampe et al, 2004;Rohling et al, 2002;Swann et al, 1999), we found significant impairment in psychomotor speed between unipolar depressed subjects and controls. Psychomotor performance in depressed subjects may be further influenced by other factors, such as hospitalization status/duration, severity, subtype and duration of depression, and medication (Bashir et al, 2013).…”

“…Bashir and colleagues (2013) verified a significant speed impairment regarding patients on antidepressants. Therefore, there are researchers (e.g., Hueng et al, 2011;Meyer et al, 2006;Swann et al, 1999) who chose to study only drug-free depressive subjects to access more precisely the actual impact of the illness itself on psychomotor function. This may represent a limitation to our study, but, for ethical reasons, we could not assess the clinical sample of medications.…”

“…Given that motor retardation is a common feature of depression (American Psychiatry Association, 2013;Caligiuri & Ellwanger, 2000), tests of fine psychomotor performance, such as the Finger Tapping Test (FTT), have been widely utilized in several studies on depression (Arnold et al, 2005;Bashir, Khade, Kosaraju, Kumar, & Rani, 2013;Caligiuri & Ellwanger, 2000;Hill, Keshavan, Thase, & Sweeney, 2004;Hueng et al, 2011;Kertzman et al, 2010;Lampe, Sitskoorn, & Heeren, 2004;Meyer et al, 2006;Rohling, Green, Allen, & Iverson, 2002;Schrijvers, Hulstijn, & Sabbe, 2008;Swann, Katz, Bowden, Berman, & Stokes, 1999) proving to be reliable to access impairments and discard malingering (Arnold et al, 2005;Rohling et al, 2002).…”

Use of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire for screening depression in head and neck cancer patients in Taiwan

“…Thus, the TDQ had good validity in its cognitive/affective component. A case–control study detected cognitive deficits in drug-free patients with major depressive disorder 36 using the TDQ and found that the cognitive subdomain of the TDQ was correlated with cognitive function. The aforementioned study supports the satisfactory validity of the cognitive aspect of the TDQ, suggesting that it may accurately assess depression in cancer patients.…”