Presented at the 2012 AAPM Annual Meeting « Back

Utility of the Zung Self-Rating Depression Screen in Nonmalignant Chronic Pain Patients

John F. Peppin, DO FACP, johnpeppin@msn.com¹, Kenneth L. Kirsh, PhD¹, Ashley Baughn, BS¹, (1) The Paint Treatment Center of the Bluegrass, Lexington, Kentucky

Chronic pain patients often have comorbid psychiatric disorders (e.g., MDS). Building on prior work validating the Zung Self-Rating Depression Screen (ZSDS) in cancer patients, we demonstrate the utility of the ZSDS in non-malignant chronic pain patients. The ZSDS and other screens were used with patients entering treatment at a multidisciplinary pain clinic. A total of 801 patients completed the behavioral medicine intake packet, which included the ZSDS. The sample comprised 318 men (39.7%) and 483 women (60.3%) with an average age of 47.4 years (SD = 10.8, range = 22-88). The majority had some type of low back pain (n = 589, 78.5%) for an average of 127.7 months (SD = 94.7, range = 6-588 months). Average score for the ZSDS was 46.1, with categories breaking into no depression (25.5%), mild (29.1%), moderate (25.7%), and severe depression (19.7%). The Brief ZSDS, controlling for somatic items, yielded an average score of 26.7, with slightly corrected findings: 23.2% no depression, 55% mild, 18.6% moderate, and 3.2% severe depression. Similar to prior work, principal components factor analysis generated a five factor solution accounting for 50.7% of the variance. The ZSDS had a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.82. The ZSDS shows initially utility as a screener for depression in chronic pain patients. Further analyses will be conducted to explore utility of the ZSDS in pain populations. This study was reviewed/approved by Research Ethics Compliance Committee. References: 1)1. Passik SD, Lundberg JC, Rosenfeld B, Kirsh KL, Donaghy K, Theobald DE, Lundberg E, Dugan W. Factor analysis of the zung self-rating depression scale in a large ambulatory oncology sample. Psychosomatics. 2000; 41:121-127.

Funding: None