Validation of the Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDIE) as a rapid suicidality screening tool in Chinese people with epilepsy

Objective: The objective of this study was to validate the Chinese version of the Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDIE) as a suicidality screening tool in Chinese people with epilepsy (PWE). Methods: A consecutive cohort of PWE was recruited from West China Hospital and 363 Hospital. Each patient received a psychiatric evaluation with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and the Chinese version of the NDDIE (C-NDDIE). Demographic and clinical characteristics were collected. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted. The best possible cutoff was identified with the highest Youden index. Specificity, sensitivity, positive, and negative predictive values were calculated. Results: Among a total of 355 participants, 41 (11.5%) had a moderate to high suicide risk according to the Suicidality Module (SM) of the MINI. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that item 4 ("I'd be better off dead") of the NDDIE had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.930 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.884-0.977), a sensitivity of 80.5%, a specificity of 94.9%, a positive predictive value (PPV) of 68.0%, a negative predictive value (NPV) of 97.7%, and the largest Youden index of 0.754 for a cutoff score of >2. Conclusion: Item 4 of the NDDIE is a valuable tool for screening suicidality in Chinese PWE. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.