Screening for Depression on Continuing Care Psychogeriatric Wards

The performance of the Depressive Signs Scale (DSS), completed by the nursing staff, in detecting significant clinical depression among continuing care psychogeriatric inpatients was examined. A cutoff score of 5/6 gave the best sensitivity (70%) and specificity (72%) in the whole sample. The same cutoff value gave the best sensitivity (62%) and specificity (72%) in the dementia subsample. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.