RESUMEN
In order to evaluate the Cornell Medical Index-Health Questionnaire (CMI) as a screening device for depressive disorders, we conducted a study in 240 patients (117 males and 123 females, 18-83 years of age with a mean of 57.7 years) who had suffered from tinnitus, dizziness, sore tongue and/or throat discomfort that are often associated with affective disorders.<BR>All the patients underwent the following 3 tests simultaneously; CMI, self-rating depression scale (SDS) and self-rating questionnaire for depression (SRQ-D). Individuals who gave one or more “yes” answers to the following 6 questions in the “depression” section on the CMI were classified into “depressive” and the remainder “non-depressive”.<BR>1. Do you feel alone and sad at a party?<BR>2. Do you usually feel unhappy and depressed?<BR>3. Do you often cry?<BR>4. Are you always miserable and blue?<BR>5. Does life look entirely hopeless?<BR>6. Do you often wish you were dead and away from it all?<BR>The result obtained by the CMI method mentioned above was significantly correlated with that by eigher of SDS and SRQ-D (P<0.0001 by chi-square test). Supposing that a depressive state was correctly diagnosed by SDS and SRQ-D as well, the sensitivity of the CMI method, namely the proportion of true positives that were correctly identified by the CMI method, was low (30.6% against SDS, 30.9% against SRQ-D). On the other hand, the specificity of the CMI method, namely the proportion of true negatives that were correctly identified by the CMI method, washigh enough (93.2% against SDS, 89.3% against SRQ-D).<BR>These results suggest that the CMI can provide a simple andfairly accurate estimate of depressive disorders.