Validity of single item responses to short message service texts to monitor depression: an mHealth sub-study of the UK ACUDep trial

An article from the BMC Medical Research Methodology journal

From the results posted in PubMed: "Depression scores based on the PHQ-9 and R-SMS-DS at 3 months were available for 337 participants (74 % female; mean age: 42 years, SD = 11.1), 213 of which completed the two outcomes within 6 days of each other. R-SMS-DS scores aligned with the underlying latent depression of the PHQ-9 (factor loading of 0.656) and in particular its affective rather than somatic dimension. The R-SMS-DS score was most strongly correlated with depressed mood (r = 0.607), feeling bad about oneself (r = 0.588) and anhedonia (r = 0.573). R-SMS-DS responses were invariant with respect to gender (p = 0.302). However, there was some evidence for age related response bias (p = 0.031), with older participants being more likely to endorse lower R-SMS-DS scores than younger ones."