title: Psychometric properties of a Persian-language version of the Beck Depression Inventory--Second edition: BDI-II-PERSIAN.
abstract: The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is perhaps the most commonly used screening instrument for depression in the general population. We examined the psychometric properties of a Persian-language version of the second edition of this instrument (BDI-II) [Beck et al., 1996] in an Iranian college-student sample. In a sample of 125 student volunteers from two Iranian universities, we compared mean item scores on the BDI-II-Persian with those on the English-language version administered to North American college students, and assessed internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the BDI-II-Persian and its concurrent validity against a measure of negative automatic thoughts in depression, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire [Hollon and Kendall, 1980]. We also examined the factor structure of the BDI-II-Persian through comparing the fit of various proposed models to the data using confirmatory factor analysis. The BDI-II-Persian had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.87) and acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.74). The instrument correlated strongly with the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. In factor analysis, models with strongly correlated affective-cognitive and somatic-vegetative factors provided a better fit than models with one global factor. These data support the reliability and concurrent validity of the BDI-II-Persian as a measure of depressive symptoms in nonclinical samples.
authors.affiliation: Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Department of Psychiatry, Roozbeh Hospital, Tehran, Iran. habibghassemzadeh@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Habibollah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ghassemzadeh
authors.forename: Ramin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mojtabai
authors.forename: Narges
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Karamghadiri
authors.forename: Narges
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ebrahimkhani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires