Depression is a disease, which has no age limits and may have severe health consequences. The hallmark of depression is the danger to the person that is expressed in jeopardy of committing suicide. Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS) and the full version of the test (IDS) are multivariate clinical screening tools designed for identification and assessment of the severity of depressive disorders that can apply to patients of any age and, which is a functional self-assessment method.
It should be mentioned that there are full and concise versions of the scale that have been developed for clinical use as well as for screening and self-report (Bernstein, Rush, Suppes, Kyotoku, & Warden, 2014). This tool is suitable for patients of all ages (from adolescence to adulthood) and it is usable for all the patients described in the case (aged 10, 16, 30, 67, and 80). Also, it is suitable for women in postpartum, for teenagers, and older adults. It is worth noting that the distinction between the full and concise versions is that the short one includes nine major symptoms of the classic version of depression, but it does not include the erased symptoms of atypical or comorbid depressive disorder while the scale of the full version includes an assessment of anxiety, melancholy, and so on (Lako et al., 2012).
Further on, the difference between the two versions of the test is that the first embodiment is intended for health care specialists as a clinical rating scale during the semi-structured interview. The screening version is designed for filling in by the patient, and it takes approximately five minutes to complete it. The questionnaire of symptoms of depression is to diagnose major depressive disorder according to DSM-IV criteria (Bernstein et al., 2014). Also, it allows making a differential assessment of depression symptoms in each patient and evaluates the contribution of each symptom in the general picture of the disorder.
In general, IDS and QIDS allow health care specialists to differentiate such diseases like endogenous depression, neurotic depression, and to distinguish major depression from dysthymia. Also, they are useful in identifying the general contingent of patients suffering from depression (Lako et al., 2014). Questions related to the psychological state of patients refer to the past seven days of their life. It is recommended to conduct a second study on the scale again seven days after the initial screening, which is a sufficient period to monitor the dynamics of the state.
It is difficult to assess which one of the patients is at the highest risk for suicide attempt because more details are needed to be able to provide such nursing evaluation. However, it can be presumed that the 80-year-old male patient who has recently become a widower belongs to the group with the highest risk of suicide possibility (Korver, Quee, Boos, Simons, & De Haan, 2012). Many older adults may have a prolonged untreated depression coupled with chronic diseases, which can adversely complicate the mental stability of a person. In the case of the man, his depression can be doubled by the loss of the spouse and the possible lack of social interaction. The danger of the situation is also connected to the fact that elderly adults often think the self-murder attempts through, which makes them more likely to be successful. Subsequently, the 80-year-old man requires special attention in nursing care.
References
Bernstein, I., Rush, A., Suppes, T., Kyotoku, Y., & Warden, D. (2014). The quick inventory of depressive symptomatology (Clinician and self-report versions) in patients with bipolar disorder. CNS Spectrums, 15(6), 367-373.
Korver, N., Quee, P., Boos, H., Simons, C., De Haan, L. (2012). Genetic risk and outcome of psychosis (group), a multi site longitudinal cohort study focused on gene-environment interaction: Objectives, sample characteristics, recruitment and assessment methods. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 21(3), 205-221.
Lako, I., Bruggeman, R., Knegtering, H., Wiersma, D., Schoevers, R., Slooff, C., & Taxis, K. (2012). A systematic review of instruments to measure depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Journal of Affective Disorders, 140(1), 38-47.
Lako, I., Wigman, J., Klaassen, R., Slooff, C., Taxis, K., & Bartels-Velthuis, A. (2014). Psychometric properties of the self-report version of the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptoms (QIDS-SR16) questionnaire in patients with schizophrenia. BMC Psychiatry, 14(247), 1-8.