title: Psychometric Aspects of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire: Implications for Clinical Assessment and Research.
abstract: The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ) is a self-report measure that assesses self-criticism and dependency, 2 personality traits that confer vulnerability to depression (Blatt, 2004 ). Over several decades, different, shortened versions of the DEQ have been constructed to offer an alternative to the complex scoring procedure of the original DEQ. This study explores the factor structure as well as the construct and convergent validity of the DEQ by comparing a clinical and nonclinical sample. We also compared the original DEQ with 5 shortened versions. There were 621 participants (358 university students and 263 outpatients). Fit indexes for models of the original DEQ did not meet minimum fit criteria. Moreover, the only versions with satisfactory fit were the Theoretical Depressive Experiences Questionnaire-21 (TDEQ-21) and the Theoretical Depressive Experiences Questionnaire-12 (TDEQ-12), which also showed acceptable construct and convergent validity. Finally, the diagnostic and clinical applicability of the DEQ is discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychological, Pedagogical, and Educational Sciences , University of Palermo , Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Falgares
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychological, Pedagogical, and Educational Sciences , University of Palermo , Italy.
authors.forename: Sandro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: De Santis
authors.affiliation: b Faculty of Psychology, University Nicolò Cusano , Rome , Italy.
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gullo
authors.affiliation: c Department of Psychology , Stony Brook University.
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Kopala-Sibley
authors.affiliation: d Department of Psychology , University of Rouen Normandy , France.
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Scrima
authors.affiliation: e Department of Social and Developmental Psychology , University of Rome "La Sapienza" , Rome , Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Livi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003858:Dependency, Psychological; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010045:Outpatients; D011594:Psychometrics; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult