Studies that compared questionnaires for psychological distress to a formal psychiatric interview in palliative care or terminally ill patients and in which the primary aim was to validate the questionnaires were eligible. Studies that included heterogeneous cancer populations at various stages of the illness were excluded. The psychiatric interview had to be set as the gold standard in the a priori question.
All studies included patients with advanced cancer. Target disorders were all psychiatric disorders, depression, and depression and adjustment disorders. Specific questionnaires evaluated were the 10-item Edinburgh Depression Scale (EDS), 6-item brief Edinburgh Depression Scale (BEDS), 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), 12 item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), single item "are you depressed?", two items "are you depressed?" and "have you lost interest/pleasure?", visual analogue scale (VAS) score, 33-item mood evaluation questionnaire, 13 Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) short form, and a 0-10 verbal mood rating scale.
The authors stated neither how the papers were selected for the review nor how many reviewers performed the selection.