Differential item functioning of the CESDR-R and GAD-7 in African and white working adults

Abstract

Orientation: Depression and anxiety can have undesirable consequences for employees and their employers. It is therefore important that employers pay attention to the existence and extent of depression and anxiety. However, measuring these constructs requires unbiased, reliable and valid instruments.Research purpose: To facilitate unbiased measurement of depression and anxiety, we investigated differential item functioning of the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R) and Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale 7 (GAD-7) in a sample of non-clinical African and white working adults.Motivation for the study: Biased measurement instruments can lead to serious problems when comparing scores between groups, using raw score cut-offs, or creating norm scores. Practitioners are legally and ethically required to ensure that any instrument used is unbiased.Research approach/design and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used. The CESD-R and GAD-7 were administered to working adults. A final sample of 551 CESD-R responses and 529 GAD-7 responses were included in the analyses. Ordinal logistic regression was performed to investigate differential item functioning.Main findings: Both CESD-R and GAD-7 showed some evidence of differential item functioning although it was mostly small in magnitude. Item bias had some minor non-negligible impact on aggregated observed scores within specific ranges of the underlying traits.Practical/managerial implications: Both CESD-R and GAD-7 show promise as instruments that can be utilised to explore the experience of anxiety and depression in African and white employees.Contribution/value-add: This study is a promising first step towards the measurement fairness of the CESD-R and GAD-7 in the South African context.

Clinical validation of brief mental health scales for use in South African occupational healthcare

“…Studies across cultures and locations have substantiated the unidimensional structure of the GAD-7 (see Table 3; Bezuidenhout, 2018;García-Campayo et al, 2010;Henn & Morgan, 2019;Hinz et al, 2017;Jordan, Shedden-Mora, & Löwe, 2017;Löwe et al, 2008;Omani-Samani, Maroufizadeh, Ghaheri, & Navid, 2018;Zhong et el., 2015) and its factorial invariance for gender and age (Hinz et al, 2017;Löwe et al, 2008) with women reporting higher scores than men (Löwe et al, 2008). Evidence supporting construct and criterion validity (Barthel, Barkmann, Ehrhardt, Bindt, & International CDS Study Group, 2014;Bezuidenhout, 2018;García-Campayo et al, 2010;Omani-Samani et al, 2018) and crosscultural validity (Zhong et al, 2015) has been reported.…”

“…Evidence supporting construct and criterion validity (Barthel, Barkmann, Ehrhardt, Bindt, & International CDS Study Group, 2014;Bezuidenhout, 2018;García-Campayo et al, 2010;Omani-Samani et al, 2018) and crosscultural validity (Zhong et al, 2015) has been reported. Initial SA validation on non-clinical samples found evidence of discriminant validity, acceptable Cronbach's alpha and concluded that the GAD-7 showed promise towards measurement fairness in SA (Bezuidenhout, 2018;Henn & Morgan, 2019).…”

Developing a brief acceptance and commitment therapy model for industrial psychologists

“…Industrial psychologists should use validated inventories to identify employees at risk, at the outset of therapy, rather than rely on their clinical judgement, which might be biased because of limited training and exposure. The following measurements show promise to be used: the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies' Depression Scale-Revised, Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale 7 (Henn & Morgan, 2019), and the Depression and Anxiety Scale (Dreyer, Henn, & Hill, 2019). These instruments should only be used by industrial psychologists to identify employees at risk and not diagnose clients, as this would be outside of their scope of practice, and should be referred to the appropriate professionals in severe cases (Henn & Morgan, 2019).…”

“…The following measurements show promise to be used: the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies' Depression Scale-Revised, Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale 7 (Henn & Morgan, 2019), and the Depression and Anxiety Scale (Dreyer, Henn, & Hill, 2019). These instruments should only be used by industrial psychologists to identify employees at risk and not diagnose clients, as this would be outside of their scope of practice, and should be referred to the appropriate professionals in severe cases (Henn & Morgan, 2019). Four individual sessions should be scheduled weekly with homework assignments between sessions.…”

The Influence of Career Adaptability on Career Calling and Health of Teachers

“…Linked to this are also challenges affecting those within professions such as teaching (inclusive of the public service). These challenges are mostly health related such as mental health and have their origin in the work done by such employees [23][24]. This chapter is positioned in a South African rural context, using a sample of teachers working in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.…”