Distinguishing depression and anxiety in self-report: Evidence from confirmatory factor analysis on nonclinical and clinical samples.

Abstract

Psychologists believe that anxiety and depression self-report scales tap distinct constructs. This assumption was tested by using confirmatory factor analysis on mood data from nonclinical samples (K. S. Dobson, 1985a; I. H. Gotlib, 1984; J. Tanaka-Matsumi & V.A. Kameoka, 1986) and a clinical sample (J. Mendels, N. Weinstein, & C. Cochrane, 1972). These analyses provide evidence that anxiety and depression self-report scales do not measure discriminant mood constructs and may therefore be better thought of as measures of general negative mood rather than as measures of anxiety and depression per se.

Examination of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 in a mixed-gender young-adolescent sample.

“…The Tucker congruency coefficients provided evidence that this factor structures stability across both genders was fair (Lorenzo-Seva & ten Berge, 2006). However, it should be noted that the overall fit of the model was in the moderate range (Feldman, 1993) and this fit was not significantly improved by omitting items that cross-loaded across two factors. Taken collectively, these findings provide some support for the use of a four-factor but shortened version of the SATAQ-3 with a sample with which the measure had not been previously validated.…”

“…The CFI, NFI and NNFI produce fit coefficients ranging from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater fit. In general, fit indices of 0.90 or greater indicate that data fit the hypothetical model well (Feldman, 1993;Marsh, Balla, & McDonald, 1988), where 0.95 or greater is considered excellent, 0.90-0.95 is considered good, and 0.80-0.90 is considered moderate (Dehon et al).…”

Variations in the Circumplex Structure of Mood

“…One persistent problem in the measurement of emotions is the failure to discriminate anxiety from depression in self-report (Feldman, 1993). Despite an overwhelming theoretical consensus that anxiety and depression are different emotional experiences (e.g., Beck, 1976;Izard, 1977;Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988;Pennebaker, 1982;Plutchik, 1980;Wallbott & Scherer, 1989), researchers have generally been unable to separate them reliably.…”

Ethnic differences in social anxiety between individuals of Asian heritage and European heritage: A meta-analytic review.

“…Many studies on the taxonomy of anxiety in adulthood (e.g., Feldman, 1993) were unable to discriminate between subtypes of anxiety and depression, and instead only found a single internalizing factor. To date, one model that has been effective in providing discriminate validity amongst subtypes of anxiety is the Tripartite Model (Clark and Watson, 1991).…”