Agreement for diagnosis of depression and anxiety between self‑assessment with e‑questionnaire and psychiatric telephone interview among post‑COVID‑19 patients

Psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, are common among individuals who have experienced coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19); however, diagnosis may be challenging and subjected to invalidity. This study aimed to examine agreement between online self‑assessment and psychiatric telephone interview among COVID‑19 survivors.

This cross‑sectional descriptive study was carried out from March to June 2021 in Afzalipour Hospital, Kerman, Iran. The inpatients confirmed with COVID‑19 were contacted within the first week after discharge and were asked to fill the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and socio‑demography questionnaire. They were later interviewed using Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM‑D) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM‑A). Agreement between the data extracted from self‑report and telephone interview was analyzed using Cohen’s kappa coefficient, sensitivity, and specificity.

Out of 200 post‑COVID patients, 60 participants completed all assessments. Prevalence of depression was observed to be 88% via telephone interview and 45% via self‑assessment. Moreover, 83% of the participants were diagnosed with anxiety according to the telephone interview, in comparison to 31% diagnosed with anxiety using self‑report questionnaire. The agreement between online self‑assessment and telephone interview for depression and anxiety was not significant (κ = 0.08 and κ = 0.1, respectively).

The discordance between online self‑report and clinician’s assessment via phone contact interview indicates that using self‑report evaluations is not sufficient as the single assessment tool for mental health monitoring and reflects the need to employ multiple assessments for diagnosis of psychiatric problems in pandemics.