VALIDATION OF THE HAMILTON RATING SCALE FOR DEPRESSION IN ADULTS WITH EPILEPSY

Purpose: Mood disorders represent a frequent psychiatric comorbidity among patients with epilepsy having a major impact on their quality of life and contributing considerably to the global burden of the disease. The availability of standardized clinical instruments validated in the epilepsy population has important implication in terms of diagnosis and treatment. This study describes the validation, in the epilepsy setting, of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD). Methods: A consecutive sample of 120 outpatients with epilepsy has been assessed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Inventory (MINI) Plus version 5.0.0 and the HRSD. Results: Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.824 for the 17-item version and 0.833 for the 21-item version. ROC analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.896 and 0.899 respectively for the two versions. However, HRSD-17 demonstrated the best psychometric properties as compared to the HRSD-21 and, with a cut off score of 6, showed a sensitivity of 94% a specificity of 80%, a positive predictive value of 46% and a negative predictive value of 99%. Conclusions: The HRSD proved to be reliable and valid in the epilepsy setting and will stimulate further research and proper clinical trials of antidepressant drugs in this special population of patients.