PRIME- MD health questionnaire for diagnosis of common mental disorders/Authors' response

Sir,

I read with interest the article by Avasti et al ' about diagnosis of common mental disorders using PRIME - MD patient health questionnaire. There is a major flaw in this study. The authors have used this instrument in a tertiary care hospital where one would expect to find higher rates of morbidity, rather than using it in primary care. In my opinion, this study is not methodologically valid, as the aim of the study was diagnosis of the common mental disorders in primary care and not as in tertiary care. Either the title of the paper needs to be changed, or the same instrument needs to be reapplied to a community sample, rather than a hospital attending sample. Applying this instrument to a community sample would give more information of the true prevalence...