Widely Used Mental Health Assessment Could Identify Depression in Teens

A nursing researcher at the University of Texas at Arlington believes that depression can be assessed in the waiting room of your health care provider. Simply filling out a widely accepted mental health assessment can help diagnose troubled teens.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in ten adults in the United States suffer from some sort of depression. If not caught in its early stages, depression can develop into more serious forms and put one at a higher risk for arthritis, asthma, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

"Getting teens treatment when they need it is essential and has potentially life-saving benefits," said Sharolyn Dihigo, the interim director of UT Arlington's Doctor of Nursing Practice program, in this EurekAlert! news release. "Providing this test while a family waits for their appointment can overcome hesitation to talk about the feelings and behaviors linked to depression and lead to treatment success."

In her study, "Use of Screening Tools for Depression in Adolescents: An Evidence-based Systematic Review," she demonstrated how the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) - a 20 question test - can determine depression symptoms in teenagers. The free test asks about sleeplessness and unhappiness experienced in the past week.

Dihigo also analyzed 14 published and unpublished works between 2005 and 2010 that examined a screening tool for depression in adolescents. She found that the CES-DC test was a low-cost and simple assessment that can make a big difference in diagnosing depression in teenagers compared to the other screening tools.

She is currently working on a paper describing her pilot project which aims to more effectively aid teenage patients who are not diagnosed or misdiagnosed. Her study was published in the journal Women's Healthcare.