A newly developed depression screening tool for primary care may be more likely to pick up suicidality in men who present with externalising symptoms, such as anger and risk-taking, Australian researchers say.

Traditional screening tools for major depression tend to emphasise symptoms such as persistent sadness and loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities, whereas patients exhibiting a ‘male-typical phenotype’, involving emotional suppression or aggression, may fall between the cracks, they say.

The psychologists have recently added to evidence validating a short-form questionnaire — the Male Depression Risk Score 7 (MDRS-7) — that is designed to identify these at-risk men.

The tool is a shortened version of the MDRS-22, which assesses male-typical externalising symptoms of depression but is “impractical” for rapid use in primary care, they say.