1 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
2 Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
3 Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
4 Centre for Prognosis Research, School of Primary, Community and Social Care, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom.
5 Departments of Medicine, Health Research and Policy, Biomedical Data Science, and Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
6 Respiratory Epidemiology and Clinical Research Unit, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
7 Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
8 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
9 Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
10 Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
11 Respiratory Epidemiology and Clinical Research Unit, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
12 Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
13 Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
14 Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, brett.thombs@mcgill.ca.
15 Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
16 Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
17 Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
18 Hull York Medical School and the Department of Health Sciences, University of York, Heslington, York, UK.
19 Library, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
20 Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
21 Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
22 International Union for Health Promotion and Health Education, École de santé publique de l'Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
23 Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
24 Department of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
25 Women's College Hospital and Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
26 Hotchkiss Brain Institute and O'Brien Institute for Public Health, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
27 Department of Psychiatry, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
28 Department of Behavioural Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.
29 King Abdulaziz University, Abdullah Sulayman, Jeddah, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
30 School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
31 Laboratorio de Investigación Biomédica, Facultad de Medicina y Nutrición, Avenida Universidad, Dgo, Mexico.
32 Department of Rehabilitation Med

Introduction: Three previous individual participant data meta-analyses (IPDMAs) reported that, compared to the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM (SCID), alternative reference standards, primarily the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), tended to misclassify major depression status, when controlling for depression symptom severity. However, there was an important lack of precision in the results.

Objective: To compare the odds of the major depression classification based on the SCID, CIDI, and MINI.

Methods: We included and standardized data from 3 IPDMA databases. For each IPDMA, separately, we fitted binomial generalized linear mixed models to compare the adjusted odds ratios (aORs) of major depression classification, controlling for symptom severity and characteristics of participants, and the interaction between interview and symptom severity. Next, we synthesized results using a DerSimonian-Laird random-effects meta-analysis.

Results: In total, 69,405 participants (7,574 [11%] with major depression) from 212 studies were included. Controlling for symptom severity and participant characteristics, the MINI (74 studies; 25,749 participants) classified major depression more often than the SCID (108 studies; 21,953 participants; aOR 1.46; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11-1.92]). Classification odds for the CIDI (30 studies; 21,703 participants) and the SCID did not differ overall (aOR 1.19; 95% CI 0.79-1.75); however, as screening scores increased, the aOR increased less for the CIDI than the SCID (interaction aOR 0.64; 95% CI 0.52-0.80).

Conclusions: Compared to the SCID, the MINI classified major depression more often. The odds of the depression classification with the CIDI increased less as symptom levels increased. Interpretation of research that uses diagnostic interviews to classify depression should consider the interview characteristics.