Correspondence to

Background While various measures of common mental disorders (CMD) have been found to be associated with mortality, a comparison of how different measures predict mortality may improve our understanding of the association. This paper compares how the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the 30-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) predict all cause and cause-specific mortality. Methods Data on 2547 men and women from two cohorts, aged approximately 39 and 55 years, from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study who were followed up for mortality over an average of 18.9 (SD 5.0) years. Scores were calculated for HADS depression (HADS-D), HADS Anxiety (HADS-A) and GHQ-30. Cox Proportional Hazards Models were used to determine how each CMD measure predicted mortality. Results After adjusting for serious physical illness, smoking, social class, alcohol, obesity, pulse rate and living alone, HRs (95 % CI) per SD increase in score for all-cause mortality were: 1.15 (1.07 to 1.25) for HADS