How useful is the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale in screening for depression in adults? An updated systematic review and meta-analysis✰

Abstract

This study analyzes the performance of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) to screen for major depressive disorder (MDD) in adults. We divided adults into three groups such as community-indwelling adults, patients with chronic diseases, and psychiatric patients. Electronic searches were performed on the MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO database using the following keywords: depression, depressive disorder, major, and CES-D scale. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 was applied to assess the risk of bias in diagnostic studies. We reviewed 33 studies, including 18,271 adults that met the selection criteria. In meta-analysis, the pooled sensitivity was 0.86 on community-indwelling adults, 0.85 on patients with chronic diseases and 0.85 on psychiatric patients. The pooled specificity was 0.74, 0.84, and 0.88, respectively, and the summary receiver-operating characteristic curves were 0.88, 0.91, and 0.93, respectively. The RE correlation was a negative value (-0.394) only in patients with chronic diseases, showing no heterogeneity between studies. The CES-D, which has shown high diagnostic accuracy in adults, can be recommended for use as a first-stage screener for MDD. As a result, the early application of the CES-D can lead to disease prevention in adults at risk for depression.

Keywords: Adult; Depression; Sensitivity and specificity; Systematic review.