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How to measure disorder in epidemiological study?

In a large scale study with over 10,000 participants how would you measure the incidence of disorder e.g. whether alcohol use proceeds depression?

You can't exactly interview them all to see if they get the disorder or not so I'm unsure
Not quite sure what you are getting at....

To measure incidence of disorder you would probably do a questionnaire at that scale and either ask if they have a diagnosis, or undergo an official test e.g. PHQ-9 for depression to ascertain if they meet criteria

To measure wether alcohol proceeds depression you would have to completely redesign your experiment.
Original post by Noodlzzz
Not quite sure what you are getting at....

To measure incidence of disorder you would probably do a questionnaire at that scale and either ask if they have a diagnosis, or undergo an official test e.g. PHQ-9 for depression to ascertain if they meet criteria

To measure wether alcohol proceeds depression you would have to completely redesign your experiment.


If you wanted to do it on a large scale (1,000+ participants) then either administer the depression questionnaire or ask for historical/current diagnoses of depression (including a) rough date of first symptoms and b) rough date of diagnosis) and then ask about onset of, historical and current alcohol use. There's a lot of problems with this method.

You can do the same thing on a smaller scale using interviews and use formal assessments to increase the data quality.

To definitively answer if alcohol proceeds depression you're looking at a longitudinal study
Original post by _Sinnie_
If you wanted to do it on a large scale (1,000+ participants) then either administer the depression questionnaire or ask for historical/current diagnoses of depression (including a) rough date of first symptoms and b) rough date of diagnosis) and then ask about onset of, historical and current alcohol use. There's a lot of problems with this method.

You can do the same thing on a smaller scale using interviews and use formal assessments to increase the data quality.

To definitively answer if alcohol proceeds depression you're looking at a longitudinal study


You quoted me? Maybe quote the OP :smile:
Original post by Noodlzzz
You quoted me? Maybe quote the OP :smile:


I was building on your response so quoted you to make it clear :smile:
Original post by _Sinnie_
I was building on your response so quoted you to make it clear :smile:


ok :smile:
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Original post by _Sinnie_
If you wanted to do it on a large scale (1,000+ participants) then either administer the depression questionnaire or ask for historical/current diagnoses of depression (including a) rough date of first symptoms and b) rough date of diagnosis) and then ask about onset of, historical and current alcohol use. There's a lot of problems with this method.

You can do the same thing on a smaller scale using interviews and use formal assessments to increase the data quality.

To definitively answer if alcohol proceeds depression you're looking at a longitudinal study


Yeah it's gonna be a longitudinal prospective study to measure alcohol as a risk factor for depression. I know I can use a questionnaire to ask about alcohol use but when following up the participants a few years later to measure incidence of depression as a clinical diagnosis, how do I measure who obtained the disorder as you can't exactly use formal interviews on 1,000+ people?

Sorry if I didn't make myself too clear!

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