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Children’s Depression Screener (ChilD-S): Development and Validation of a Depression Screening Instrument for Children in Pediatric Care

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Abstract

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate the Children’s Depression Screener (ChilD-S) for use in pediatric care. In two pediatric samples, children aged 9–12 (NI = 200; NII = 246) completed an explorative item pool (subsample I) and a revised item pool (subsample II). Diagnostic accuracy of each of the 22 items from the revised pool was evaluated in order to select the best items for the brief instrument ChilD-S. Areas under the curve (AUCs) of the revised item pool and the ChilD-S were compared. A diagnostic interview, the Kinder-DIPS, served as gold standard. For the purpose of screening for depressive disorders in children, the eight-item ChilD-S (AUC = 0.97) performed just as well as the revised 22-item pool (AUC = 0.94). For the ChilD-S the optimal cut-off point of ≥11 yielded a sensitivity of 0.91 and a specificity of 0.89. The ChilD-S shows high potential for depression screening of children in pediatric care.

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Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health within the promotional emphasis of Gesund.Leben.Bayern. We thank all participating families, as well as the Department of Pediatrics of the Hospital “Harlaching”, the Department of Pediatric Surgery of the University Hospital “Dr. von Haunersches Kinderspital”, the Departments of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery of the Hospital “Dritter Orden” and the Departments of Pediatric and Pediatric Surgery of the University Hospital “Schwabing”. We are very grateful to Anne Hoyler for her support in the organisation of the study and to Anna Maria O’Leary as well as to Calum Anderson for linguistic editing of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Nussbaumstraße 5a, 80336, Munich, Germany

    Barbara Frühe, Antje-Kathrin Allgaier, Kathrin Pietsch & Gerd Schulte-Körne

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Hospital “Dritter Orden”, Munich, Germany

    Martina Baethmann & Jochen Peters

  3. Department of Pediatric Surgery, Hospital “Dritter Orden”, Munich, Germany

    Stephan Kellnar

  4. Department of Pediatrics, Hospital “Harlaching”, Munich, Germany

    Axel Heep

  5. Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Stefan Burdach

  6. Department of Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital “Dr. von Haunersches Kinderspital”, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Dietrich von Schweinitz

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  1. Barbara Frühe
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  2. Antje-Kathrin Allgaier
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  7. Axel Heep
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  10. Gerd Schulte-Körne
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Correspondence to Gerd Schulte-Körne.

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Barbara Frühe and Antje-Kathrin Allgaier contributed equally to this paper.

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Frühe, B., Allgaier, AK., Pietsch, K. et al. Children’s Depression Screener (ChilD-S): Development and Validation of a Depression Screening Instrument for Children in Pediatric Care. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 43, 137–151 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-011-0254-1

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