Unidentified depression in primary care is a public health concern, globally. There is a need for brief, valid and easily administered tools in primary care.

To estimate reliability and validity of the newly developed Primary care Screening Questionnaire for Depression (PSQ4D), a four-item tool, with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ options.

PSQ4D was administered verbally (time required, <1 min) by primary care physicians to adult outpatients (n=827) in six primary care settings in Kerala, India. A psychiatrist evaluated each patient on the same day, using ICD-10 Diagnostic Criteria for Research, based on unstructured clinical interview.

The Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency reliability was 0.80; kappa coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.9 and that for interrater reliability was 0.72. At a score ≥2, sensitivity was 0.96, specificity was 0.87, positive predictive value was 0.74, negative predictive value was 0.98, positive likelihood ratio was 7.4 and negative likelihood ratio was 0.05.

When physician administered, PSQ4D has good reliability. At a cut-off score of ≥2, it has high sensitivity and specificity to identify depressive disorder in primary care.

Resources to address the needs of parents of intellectually disabled children in developing countries are limited.

The efficacy of interactive group psychoeducation on measures of parental attitude towards intellectual disability was assessed in southern India.

Fifty-seven parents randomised to 10 weeks of experimental and control therapy were assessed using the Parental Attitude Scale towards the Management of Intellectual Disability. The pre- and post-intervention measurements were done by a single-blinded rater and compared.

The intervention group had a statistically significant increase in the outcome scores and clinical improvement in the total parental attitude score, orientation towards child-rearing, knowledge towards intellectual disability and attitude towards management of intellectual disability, but no change in attitude towards the intellectual disability subscale.

Interactive group psychoeducation is effective for changing the attitude of parents with intellectually disabled children, and is a viable option to be developed in situations where resources are limited.