Assessment of depression in a geriatric inpatient cohort: A comparison of the BDI and GDS

It was the purpose of this investigation to directly compare the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) in their ability to assess and classify depression in a geriatric inpatient population. A retrospective chart review of 158 consecutively admitted patient's medical records to a geriatric inpatient unit was conducted. Data collected from chart reviews included diagnoses, demographic information, scores on both the BDI and GDS, and scores from several neuropsychological tests. Items from both the BDI and GDS were factor analyzed to obtain orthogonal constructs. In addition, the items of both the BDI and GDS were entered into a discriminant function analysis to investigate their ability to classify depression diagnosis. Finally, the factor scores and total scores from each questionnaire were correlated with measures of neuropsychological function. The results indicated that both the BDI and GDS have multi-factor structures and have questionable utility in the classification of depression. Furthermore, the Vegetative Symptoms factor of the BDI was found to significantly correlate with several measures of neuropsychological function. The results were discussed in terms of the relative clinical utility of these two self-report depression measures.