1 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
2 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
3 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada.
4 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
5 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
6 Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
7 EMGO Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
8 Hull York Medical School and the Department of Health Sciences, University of York, Heslington, York, UK.
9 Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Department of Medicine, Department of Health Research and Policy, Department of Biomedical Data Science, Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
10 Library, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
11 Departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada; Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada; Cuthbertson & Fischer Chair in Pediatric Mental Health, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
12 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
13 Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
14 Hotchkiss Brain Institute & O'Brien Institute for Public Health, Calgary, AB, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, Clinical Neuroscience and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada; Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
15 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada; Centre for Nursing Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada; Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
16 Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada; Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
17 Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
18 Department of Behavioural Medicine, College of Medicine & Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, Oman.
19 Psychotherapie und Psychsomatik, kbo Lech-Mangfall-Klinik für Psychatrie, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bayern, Germany.
20 Department of Radiation Oncology (MAASTRO), GROW - School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, the Netherlands; Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, the Netherlands; Department of Health Services Research, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary, Maastricht University, Maastri

Objective: Two previous individual participant data meta-analyses (IPDMAs) found that different diagnostic interviews classify different proportions of people as having major depression overall or by symptom levels. We compared the odds of major depression classification across diagnostic interviews among studies that administered the Depression subscale of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-D).

Methods: Data accrued for an IPDMA on HADS-D diagnostic accuracy were analysed. We fit binomial generalized linear mixed models to compare odds of major depression classification for the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID), Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), and Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), controlling for HADS-D scores and participant characteristics with and without an interaction term between interview and HADS-D scores.

Results: There were 15,856 participants (1942 [12%] with major depression) from 73 studies, including 15,335 (97%) non-psychiatric medical patients, 164 (1%) partners of medical patients, and 357 (2%) healthy adults. The MINI (27 studies, 7345 participants, 1066 major depression cases) classified participants as having major depression more often than the CIDI (10 studies, 3023 participants, 269 cases) (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.70 (0.84, 3.43)) and the semi-structured SCID (36 studies, 5488 participants, 607 cases) (aOR = 1.52 (1.01, 2.30)). The odds ratio for major depression classification with the CIDI was less likely to increase as HADS-D scores increased than for the SCID (interaction aOR = 0.92 (0.88, 0.96)).

Conclusion: Compared to the SCID, the MINI may diagnose more participants as having major depression, and the CIDI may be less responsive to symptom severity.