[Depression screening in pediatric patients - a comparison of the concurrent validity of the German version of the Children's Depression Inventory, the German Depression Test for Children, and the new Children's Depression Screener].

Depression screening in pediatric patients - a comparison of the concurrent validity of the German version of the Children's Depression Inventory, the German Depression Test for Children, and the new Children's Depression Screener Objective: We compared the concurrent validity of several tests for screening depression in pediatric care with respect to ICD-10 depres- sion diagnoses in medically ill children: the German version of the Children's Depression Inventory (Depressionsinventar fur Kinder und Jugendliche, DIKJ), the scale Dysphoria of the Depression Test for Children (Depressionstest fur Kinder, DTK), and the Children's Depression Screener (ChilD-S). Method: Data of 9- to 12-year-old patients (N = 228) were analyzed with receiver operating character- istics. Validity measures like area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity (SE), and specificity (SP) were calculated for each instrument and subsequently compared. ICD-10 depression diagnoses according to a structured clinical interview served as the gold standard. Results: The concurrent validity was high for the 26-item DIKJ (AUC = 92.6 %), satisfactory for the 25-item scale Dysphoria (AUC = 86.2 %), and very high for the 8-item ChilD-S (AUC = 97.5 %); the ChilD-S was significantly superior to the DIKJ. According to the Youden-Index the following cutoff scores are recommended: DIKJ ≥ 12 (SE = 91.7 %, SP = 81.9 %), scale Dysphoria ≥ 10 (SE = 75.0 %, SP = 89.8 %) and ChilD-S ≥ 10 (SE = 100 %, SP = 86.6 %). Conclusions: DIKJ and ChilD-S showed excellent concurrent validity for depression screening in pediatric patients, while the scale Dysphoria achieved lower values. For implementation in time-limited pediatric settings, the economic ChilD-S is the preferred instrument.