Psychometric evaluation of a decision quality instrument for medication decisions for treatment of depression symptoms

• Published in: BMC medical informatics and decision making 2021-08, Vol.21 (1), p.252-252, Article 252
• Main Authors: Brodney, Suzanne, Valentine, K D, Sepucha, Karen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antidepressants; Care and treatment; Clinical decision making; Counseling; Decision Making; Depression - drug therapy; Depression symptoms; Depression, Mental; Diagnosis; Evaluation; Health aspects; Health informatics; Health services; Humans; Knowledge; Mental depression; Patient centered care; Patients; Physicians; Polls & surveys; Preferences; Primary care; Psychiatrists; Psychometrics; Quality measurement; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Reliability; Reproducibility of Results; Shared decision making; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 1472-6947; 1472-6947
• DOI: 10.1186/s12911-021-01611-w

A high quality treatment decision means patients are informed and receive treatment that matches their goals. This research examined the reliability and validity of the Depression Decision Quality Instrument (DQI), a survey to measure the extent to which patients are informed and received preferred treatment for depression. Participants were aged 18 and older from 17 US cities who discussed medication or counseling with a physician in the past year, and physicians who treated patients with depression who practiced in the same cities. Participants were mailed a survey that included the Depression-DQI, a tool with 10 knowledge and 7 goal and concern items. Patients were randomly assigned to either receive a patient decision aid (DA) on treatment of depression or no DA. A matching score was created by comparing the patient's preferred treatment to their self-reported treatment received. Concordant scores were considered matched, discordant were not. We examined the reliability and known group validity of the Depression-DQI. Most patients 405/504 (80%) responded, 79% (320/405) returned the retest survey, and 60% (114/187) of physicians returned the survey. Patients' knowledge scores on the 10-item scale ranged from 14.6 to 100% with no evidence of floor or ceiling effects. Retest reliability for knowledge was moderate and for goals and concerns ranged from moderate to good. Mean knowledge scores differentiated between patients and physicians (M = 63 [SD = 15] vs. M = 81 [SD = 11], p