Discusses ways to improve clinicians’ recognition and treatment of depression in Vietnamese refugees and examines the effectiveness of Vietnamese-language depression-screening instruments in the primary care setting. Study subjects were newly arrived Vietnamese refugees between the ages of 18 and 65 who were undergoing mandatory routine health screening at the San Francisco General Hospital Refugee Medical Clinic. Among the screening instruments used were the Indochinese Hopkins Symptom Checklist Depression Subscale (HSCL-D), which covered cognitive, affective, and somatic symptoms of depression, and the Vietnamese Depression Scale (VDS), which also contained some culture-specific items. Results demonstrated that both the HSCL-D and the VDS were highly sensitive instruments that minimized false-positive readings. Moreover, most of the patients with false-positive readings exhibited other clinical disorders, thereby enhancing the instruments’ clinical utility. The HSCL-D and VDS also performed wellacross different clinical settings and in comparison with other depression screening scales. The routine use of the HSCL-D and the VDS instruments likely would improve detection of depression in Vietnamese refugees, thereby improving care while eliminating unnecessary tests and reducing inappropriate services.
