Validity study of Patient Health Questionnaire‐9 items for Internet screening in depression among Chinese university students

Background Internet intervention in Chinese university students would be a possible approach to overcome the gap between high rate of depression and high rates of underdiagnosis and undertreatment. As a popular measure of screening, the feasibility and user satisfaction of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 items for online program were tested. Methods The subjects were enrolled based on an email list from the students' office of a Chinese university, and 300 undergraduate students were randomly invited of which 230 (76.7%) students were willing to participate in the study and completed the first test. After 2 weeks, a subsample of 150 (65.2%) subjects were randomly chosen to retake the test for the test-retest reliability. And 81 (35.2%) among the 230 subjects were randomly selected to undergo the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview within 48 hours. Among 150 subjects, 120 (52.2%) completed client satisfaction questionnaire about this online screening program. Results (1) The Cronbach alpha was 0.80 and the test-retest reliability was 0.78. (2) The optimal cutoff score of 10 revealed a sensitivity of 0.74 and specificity of 0.85, with an area under the curve of 0.897 (95% confidence interval, 0.823-0.970). (3) The mean duration of administration was 3.5 minutes. (4) Satisfaction with the online screening program was highly appreciated. Conclusions The results indicated potential value of the online screening program for further Internet-administrated programs of depression among Chinese university students.