Is a patient-administered depression rating scale valid for detecting cognitive deficits in patients with major depressive disorder?

Aims: Although cognitive deficits are a common and potentially debilitating feature of major depressive disorder (MDD), such subjective declines in cognitive function are seldom validated by objective methods as a clinical routine. The aim of this study was to validate the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire (TDQ) for detecting cognitive deficits in a sample of drug-free patients with MDD.

Methods: The subjects consisted of 40 well-characterized medication-free patients with MDD and 40 healthy controls.