The Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Score (IDEA-RS) has been externally assessed in samples from four continents, but North America is lacking. Our aim here was to evaluate the performance of the IDEA-RS in predicting future onset of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in an adolescent population-based sample in the United States of America - the Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS). We applied the intercept and weights of the original IDEA-RS model developed in Brazil to generate individual probabilities for each participant of the GSMS at age 15 (N = 1029). We then evaluated the performance of such predictions against the diagnosis of MDD at age 19 using simple, case-mix corrected and refitted models. Furthermore, we compared how prioritizing the information provided by parents or by adolescents affected performance. The IDEA-RS exhibited a C-statistic of 0.63 (95% CI 0.53-0.74) to predict MDD in the GSMS when applying uncorrected weights. Case-mix corrected and refitted models enhanced performance to 0.69 and 0.67, respectively. No significant difference was found in performance by prioritizing the reports of adolescents or their parents. The IDEA-RS was able to parse out adolescents at risk for a later onset of depression in the GSMS cohort with above chance discrimination. The IDEA-RS has now showed above-chance performance in five continents.
Keywords: Adolescence; Depression; Prediction; Prevention; Risk score; Young adult.
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