Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27761346›Full record

ArticlePeerJ2016

Boundary curves of individual items in the distribution of total depressive symptom scores approximate an exponential pattern in a general population.

Shinichiro Tomitaka, Yohei Kawasaki, Kazuki Ide, Maiko Akutagawa, Hiroshi Yamada, Toshiaki A Furukawa, Yutaka Ono

Open access · goldAbstract read
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Article in PeerJ, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
2.6field-weighted citation impact, top 11% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

Shinichiro TomitakaDepartment of Mental Health, Panasonic Health Center, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Drug Evaluation and Informatics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan.ORCID 0000-0002-7161-6967
Yohei KawasakiDepartment of Drug Evaluation and Informatics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka , Shizuoka , Japan.
Kazuki IdeDepartment of Drug Evaluation and Informatics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka , Shizuoka , Japan.ORCID 0000-0001-6377-1361
Maiko AkutagawaDepartment of Drug Evaluation and Informatics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka , Shizuoka , Japan.
Hiroshi YamadaDepartment of Drug Evaluation and Informatics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka , Shizuoka , Japan.
Toshiaki A FurukawaDepartment of Health Promotion and Human Behavior, Department of Clinical Epidemiology/Graduate School of Medicine/School of Public Health, Kyoto University , Kyoto , Japan.
Yutaka OnoCenter for the Development of Cognitive Behavior Therapy Training , Tokyo , Japan.
University of Shizuoka · JPKyoto University · JPPanasonic (Japan) · JP

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPreviously, we proposed a model for ordinal scale scoring in which individual thresholds for each item constitute a distribution by each item. This lead us to hypothesize that the boundary curves of each depressive symptom score in the distribution of total depressive symptom scores follow a common mathematical model, which is expressed as the product of the frequency of the total depressive symptom scores and the probability of the cumulative distribution function of each item threshold. To verify this hypothesis, we investigated the boundary curves of the distribution of total depressive symptom scores in a general population.

methodsData collected from 21,040 subjects who had completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) questionnaire as part of a national Japanese survey were analyzed. The CES-D consists of 20 items (16 negative items and four positive items). The boundary curves of adjacent item scores in the distribution of total depressive symptom scores for the 16 negative items were analyzed using log-normal scales and curve fitting.

resultsThe boundary curves of adjacent item scores for a given symptom approximated a common linear pattern on a log normal scale. Curve fitting showed that an exponential fit had a markedly higher coefficient of determination than either linear or quadratic fits. With negative affect items, the gap between the total score curve and boundary curve continuously increased with increasing total depressive symptom scores on a log-normal scale, whereas the boundary curves of positive affect items, which are not considered manifest variables of the latent trait, did not exhibit such increases in this gap. DISCUSSION: The results of the present study support the hypothesis that the boundary curves of each depressive symptom score in the distribution of total depressive symptom scores commonly follow the predicted mathematical model, which was verified to approximate an exponential mathematical pattern.

Indexed as

Boundary curveCES-DDepressionDepressive symptomsExponential distributionLatent traitLevel of measurementLikert scaleLogistic distributionOrdinal scale

Identifiers

PMID27761346
PMCPMC5068372
OpenAlexW2530773842

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.