Evidence from:
MB Glenn et al. Brain Injury. Sept (2001) Vol. 15 #9 P 811.
A study of out patients with traumatic brain injury. At issue is the prevalence of depression.
41 outpatients were tested using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at one year since the injury event. The BDI register someone as mildly depressed if they have a score of 13 or over. Moderate or severe depression corresponds to a score of 19 or more.
59% were >13 = depressed
34% were >19 = moderate or severe depression.
Depression is a function of age, female gender, a negative view of the injury event, mild TBI and use of
antidepressants.
Comment
At first this appears to indicate a high prevalence of clinical depression in TBI cases. However, his is an unusual group, most mild TBI cases don’t keep coming for outpatient work at one year, yet many of the cases here were mild TBI.
The BDI measures severity and is not usually used for diagnosis. Alternate methods should have been applied to the diagnosis, before severity is assessed.
One suggestion is that pre event characteristics are predictive of long term depression.