The Depressing Truth about Depression Scales with Dr. Cathy Pederson

In this episode, Dr. Cathy Pederson discusses her recent study on assessing depression in individuals with chronic invisible illnesses like POTS, MCAS, and EDS. The study highlights a significant flaw in many depression scales: they often include somatic symptoms that are typical of chronic illnesses, artificially inflating depression scores. This means that individuals with these conditions might be inaccurately assessed as more depressed than they actually are, due to the overlap of their physical symptoms with those used to diagnose depression. Dr. Pederson suggests the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale as a better option for evaluating depression in individuals with chronic illnesses in 2022. The episode emphasizes the importance of healthcare professionals and researchers being aware of this issue to improve the accuracy of depression assessments in this population.