title: Depression in France and Brazil: factorial structure of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Scale in inpatients.
abstract: Among various research strategies for depression, the cross-cultural approach is a useful tool to investigate depressive disorders. The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression was applied to 130 depressed inpatients in France and Brazil. Items were factorized by principal component analysis with Varimax rotation using the Kaiser or simulation method for factor sorting. Three factors were obtained in France, and four in Brazil. The first factor includes the core symptoms of depression in both samples. Qualitative and quantitative differences appeared in the anxiety factor between Brazilian and French samples. Insomnia items appeared as another factor for both groups. A limitation of this study is that it was conducted with small inpatient samples. Principal component analysis of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression for depressive inpatients in these two countries showed a similar structure. Differences observed were in the way anxiety items were distributed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcelo Pio de Almeida
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Fleck
authors.forename: Márcia Lorena Fagundes
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Chaves
authors.forename: Marie France
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Poirier-Littré
authors.forename: Marie Chantal
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Bourdel
authors.forename: Henri
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Loo
authors.forename: Julien Daniel
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Guelfi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003710:Demography; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index