My survey has been completed and approved! You can view it here or click on the tab entitled "Patient Survey." This means I will likely start conducting patient interviews within the week. Originally, I was planning on using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) to survey patients. However, HAM-D is an extensive twenty-one question multiple-choice questionnaire.
My mentor felt that the more brief, but well-validated, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is more appropriate for the scope of my research. As I indicated in my proposal, the scores from the survey would be used to rank the severity of depression symptoms; not to declare patients who score above a certain point as depressed and those who score below that point as not depressed. PHQ-9 scores each of the nine DSM-IV criteria for depression symptoms from “0,” i.e. "not at all," to “3,” i.e. "nearly every day" (see Figure 1).
As I continue to update you on my progress, check out the “Glossary” tab at the top of the page where I have compiled a list of various terms I use. And as always, thank you for your readership.
1 Mondimore, F. M. (2007, September 15). Never-Ending Winter: Chronic Depression. Psychiatric Times. Retrieved
from http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54361.
My mentor felt that the more brief, but well-validated, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is more appropriate for the scope of my research. As I indicated in my proposal, the scores from the survey would be used to rank the severity of depression symptoms; not to declare patients who score above a certain point as depressed and those who score below that point as not depressed. PHQ-9 scores each of the nine DSM-IV criteria for depression symptoms from “0,” i.e. "not at all," to “3,” i.e. "nearly every day" (see Figure 1).
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Figure 2. Hemoglobin A1c is a component of hemoglobin
to which glucose is bound. |
Earlier this week, I posted about how I ultimately want to show the implications of a relationship between diabetes and depression. You will notice on my survey that I am recording the patient's HbA1c level, or glycosylated hemoglobin (see Figure 2). This is the average amount of sugar in blood over three months, i.e. the level of glycemic control (blood glucose control) that the patient has maintained over the previous three months. Because glycemic control is the most important aspect of maintaining control over your diabetes, the HbA1c level is a very good indicator of how well the patient's treatment is going. It is for this reason that I have chosen to include the patient's HbA1c on my survey. The recorded
HbA1c values will hopefully provide for a comparative analysis of how well the treatment is for diabetics with depression and diabetics without depression.
HbA1c values will hopefully provide for a comparative analysis of how well the treatment is for diabetics with depression and diabetics without depression.
As I continue to update you on my progress, check out the “Glossary” tab at the top of the page where I have compiled a list of various terms I use. And as always, thank you for your readership.
Lalani.
from http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54361.
I am really enjoying reading your blog and look forward to seeing the results of this survey. I very much like that it was simplified, because at times, when a survery is complicated, it becomes very hard to interpret and relate the results to your audience.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mr. Nishan.
DeleteIn addition to mere efficiency, I think another benefit of using a more simplified survey will be being able to interview more patients during my time here, resulting in a larger and more representative sample size. Moreover, I don't believe using PHQ-9 instead of HAM-D will result in inferior results because, as mentioned, PHQ-9 is well-validated within the scientific community.