Diagnostic Performances of a Rapid Screening Tool for Detection of Psychiatric Symptomatology in an Urban Community Setting of People Who Use Drugs in France

J Dual Diagn. 2025 Sep 13:1-16. doi: 10.1080/15504263.2025.2557194. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy a rapid 9-item peer-administered questionnaire, the Quick Screening Tool (QST), to detect urgent mental health symptoms in an urban community setting in France of People who use drugs (PWUD). Methods: Participants were recruited through Respondant-Driven Sampling. We used modules from the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview as the reference standard (current major depressive episode, suicidal risk, or current psychotic disorder). We calculated the area under the curve as well as sensitivity and specificity. Results: Thirty-four percent of the 175 participants were assessed as in need of urgent mental care. The prevalence for depressive episode, suicidal risk and current psychotic syndrome was 11%, 19%, and 8%, respectively. The QST had an area under the curve for the detection of urgent psychiatric symptoms of 0.82. With a cutoff of 3, it had a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 64.4%. Conclusions: The performance of the QST in screening for urgent mental health symptoms was satisfactory. This questionnaire could be more broadly used in hard-to-reach PWUD populations in community-based interventions.

PMID:40944870 | DOI:10.1080/15504263.2025.2557194