Over the past two days, I've surveyed four more patients, bringing me to a total of thirteen subjects in my study thus far. Below are the compiled results of all thirteen.
All four of these patients are Type 2 diabetics and scored a zero on PHQ-9. If you have taken a look at my survey, you would probably wonder how four middle-aged or older people with a chronic medical condition can manage to rank a symtom like "feeling tired or having little energy" or "trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much" with a zero (i.e. "not at all" in response to the question, "Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?") when even I feel that I would respond with at least a one in ranking either of those problems.
This is because PHQ-9 is administered in such a way that if the patient indicates zero incidence of the first two symtoms, "little interest or pleasure in doing things" and "feeling down, depressed, or hopeless," then the seven remaining questions are not asked and the patient's final total score is zero. I would suspect that the survey is designed this way because if the first two (aforementioned) problems are not present while some of the other seven are, then it can be concluded that the presence of those 'other' problems (questions three to nine on PHQ-9) are not symptomatic of depression, but rather of other, not necessarily serious, medical issues (e.g. recent stress).
It seems that Type 2 diabetics have consistently scored lower than Type 1 diabetics on PHQ-9, except in the case of Patient 4. However, having surveyed only thirteen subjects, it is most definitely too soon to generalize.
Lalani.
All four of these patients are Type 2 diabetics and scored a zero on PHQ-9. If you have taken a look at my survey, you would probably wonder how four middle-aged or older people with a chronic medical condition can manage to rank a symtom like "feeling tired or having little energy" or "trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much" with a zero (i.e. "not at all" in response to the question, "Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?") when even I feel that I would respond with at least a one in ranking either of those problems.
This is because PHQ-9 is administered in such a way that if the patient indicates zero incidence of the first two symtoms, "little interest or pleasure in doing things" and "feeling down, depressed, or hopeless," then the seven remaining questions are not asked and the patient's final total score is zero. I would suspect that the survey is designed this way because if the first two (aforementioned) problems are not present while some of the other seven are, then it can be concluded that the presence of those 'other' problems (questions three to nine on PHQ-9) are not symptomatic of depression, but rather of other, not necessarily serious, medical issues (e.g. recent stress).
It seems that Type 2 diabetics have consistently scored lower than Type 1 diabetics on PHQ-9, except in the case of Patient 4. However, having surveyed only thirteen subjects, it is most definitely too soon to generalize.
Lalani.
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