Cross-ethnic measurement equivalence of measures of depression, social anxiety, and worry.
Although study of clinical phenomena in individuals from different ethnic backgrounds has improved over the years, African American and Asian American individuals continue to be underrepresented in research samples. Without adequate psychometric data about how questionnaires perform in individuals from different ethnic samples, findings from both within and across groups are arguably uninterpretable. Analyses based on item response theory (IRT) allow us to make fine-grained comparisons of the ways individuals from different ethnic groups respond to clinical measures. This study compared response patterns of African American and Asian American undergraduates to White undergraduates on measures of depression, social anxiety, and worry. On the Beck Depression Inventory-II, response patterns for African American participants were roughly equivalent to the response patterns of White participants. On measures of worry and social anxiety, there were substantial differences, suggesting that the use of these measures in African American and Asian American populations may lead to biased conclusions.
Hambrick
James P
JP
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. hambricj@childpsych.columbia.edu
Rodebaugh
Thomas L
TL
Balsis
Steve
S
Woods
Carol M
CM
Mendez
Julia L
JL
Heimberg
Richard G
RG
D001741:Black or African American; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D001213:Asian; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003469:Culture; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D044465:White People