Can the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Be Used to Screen for Depression in Children and Adolescents? An Updated Systematic Review

This study is an updated systematic review verifying whether the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a valuable screening tool for children and adolescents. Electronic searches were performed on MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycArticles, using depression and CES-D as keywords. Fourteen studies that included 7,843 children and adolescents were analyzed. In the meta-analysis by CES-D type, the pooled sensitivity and specificity for the long version were 0.81 and 0.72, respectively; they were 0.80 and 0.74 for the short version, respectively. The summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curves were 0.83 and 0.86, respectively. Compared to the CES-D and other tools, the pooled sensitivity (0.84 vs. 0.83) and the pooled specificity (0.72 vs. 0.74) were similar, and the sROC curve was the same at 0.83. This review indicates that the CES-D is an available and valuable tool for screening depression in children and adolescents.