Comparison between primary care evaluation of mental disorders patient questionnaire and the self reporting questionnaire as screening tools for psychiatric disorders at the UP-PGH Pain Clinic

ABSTRACT

This research aims to compare the validity of two (2) screening instruments - PRIME-MD PQ and SRQ - in terms of their ability to discriminate patients with psychiatric disorders from those without at the UP-PGH Pain Clinic. This is a cross sectional study 102 of patients evaluated by 3 pain fellow physicians and reviewed by 1 psychiatrist. There was good agreement between PRIME-MD PQ and psychiatric interview (k=0.67) compared to the correlation between SRQ and psychiatric interview (k=0.51). However, with the removal of the item in the SRQ eliciting grandiosity from the "psychotic" items, agreement of the psychiatric interview with the modified SRQ (without item 22) rose to k=0.76. When all items on psychosis were eliminated (SRQ-20), agreement was even better (k=0.79). Both shorter versions of SRQ (Modified SRQ & SRQ-20) were superior to the PRIME-MD PQ in discriminating between patients with and without psychiatric disorders at the pain clinic.