Assessing Depressive Symptoms in African American and Mexican American Elders

Now the same mental health researchers add Espino to their team and report on their investigation in assessing a different mental disorder, depression, this time with both African-Americans 16(n = 58) in the community and Mexican-Americans (n = 57) with affective disorder. While I have used the GDS with both populations, and believe it to be the most appropriate test for depression screening, the research reported here raises some questions about the scale’s sensitivity: particularly the ability to pick out major depressive disorder from other affective disorders.