Depression Inventory for Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients

Depression is assessed through structured clinical interviews or diagnostic scales. Structured clinical interviews are often regarded as the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of depressive disorders, since they are based on specific diagnostic criteria. However, since it is not always possible for patients to be evaluated by a psychiatrist, some scales are used instead. Even though these scales are not a diagnostic criterion, they are helpful in identifying patients at risk . However, screening may also result in false negatives, where cases of depression are not detected and, consequently, go untreated. Patients with kidney failure differ from the general population because they experience higher rates of comorbid depression. Indeed, there is a clear need for more effective screening tools for patients undergoing hemodialysis, given the wide variation in depression screening methods and the absence of a gold-standard assessment tool tailored to this specific population. Developing an easily administered, disease-specific self-report measure for depression could prove to be highly beneficial. There is only one study that has examined a depression tool specifically designed for patients on maintenance dialysis, known as the Depression Inventory-Maintenance Hemodialysis (DI-MHD)

Inclusion criteria

• Patients aged 18 years and older
• Patients who were receiving hemodialysis treatment for at least three months
• Patients could communicate in Turkish
• Patients who agreed to participate in the study were included in the study.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who suffered from psychiatric disorders such as chronic psychosis and were previously diagnosed with depression were excluded from the study