Effectiveness of Beck Depression Inventory–Ii Subscales in Screening for Major Depressive Disorders in Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients

The Beck Depression Inventory–II (BDI-II) was administered to 45 male and 55 female psychiatric inpatients who were 12 to 17 years old, and the Mood Module from the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) was used to determine whether these patients met criteria for a diagnosis of a DSM-IV major depressive disorder (MDD). Binormal receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) analyses found that BDI-II total scores, Cognitive subscale scores, Noncognitive subscale scores, and embedded BDI Fast Screen for Medical Patients subscale scores were comparably effective in differentiating inpatients who were and were not diagnosed with a MDD; the areas under the ROC curves were, respectively, .92 (95% confidence interval [CI]: .85-.96), .90 (95% CI: .82-.95), .90 (95% CI: .83-.95), and .90 (95% CI: .83-.95).