Screening Latino Farmworkers for Depression in Primary Care

Abstract

Latino farmworkers experience depression at significantly higher rates than non-Latino Whites and usually they seek help for their mental health needs at primary care settings. Despite the high prevalence of depression in this population, primary care providers fail to detect the disorder in approximately 60% of the clinically depressed Latino farmworkers. Several depression-screening instruments have been translated into Spanish to address the mental health needs of monolingual Spanish speaking Latinos in the US, however the adequacy of these instruments is still unclear. The objective of this dissertation was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Latino Farmworker Affective Scale (LFAS-15) as compared to the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Centers for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CESD-10), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and the DSM-IV Structured Clinical Interview for Depression (SCID) in accurately detecting depressive symptoms in Latino farmworkers. The LFAS-15 demonstrated good internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of .925 (n=15), good convergent validity with the Structured Clinical Interview for Depression (r=.669, p<.001), and good sensitivity and specificity (AUC) of .939, SE=.024, p,.001).