On the Validity of the Beck Depression Inventory

Abstract

The present review discusses validity aspects of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) on the basis of meta-analyses of studies on the psychometric properties. Shortcomings of the BDI are its high item difficulty, lack of representative norms, and thus doubtful objectivity of interpretation, controversial factorial validity, instability of scores over short time intervals (over the course of 1 day), and poor discriminant validity against anxiety. Advantages of the inventory are its high internal consistency, high content validity, validity in differentiating between depressed and nondepressed subjects, sensitivity to change, and international propagation. The present paper outlines agreements and contradictions between the various studies on the BDI and discusses the potential factors (composition of the subject sample, statistical procedures, point in time of measurement) accounting for the variance in their results.

Micronutrient Deficiency Independently Predicts Time to Event in Patients With Heart Failure

“…The BDI‐II17, 18, 19 was used to assess level of depressive symptoms in the sample. This 21‐item instrument measures the degree of depressive symptoms, such as pessimism, agitation, and loss of energy, with most items scored on a 0 to 3 scale; 2 of the items are scored on a 0 to 6 scale and then rescaled to range from 0 to 3 before inclusion in the total.…”

Family functioning and maternal distress in adolescent girls with anorexia nervosa

“…35 The Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form (BDI-SF) 36 is a 13-item scale that was derived from the BDI to measure depression in primary care and other medical settings. 37 The scale is composed of the cognitive affective subscale of the BDI. It has demonstrated adequate psychometric properties 38 including good concurrent validity with the ICD-10 criteria for moderate and severe depressive episodes, 39 suggesting it is a good screening tool for depression.…”

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale depression subscale, but not the Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Scale, identifies patients with acute coronary syndrome at elevated risk of 1-year mortality

“…The 7-item BDI-FS is a shortened version of the BDI [24], and the two versions are highly correlated with high internal reliability [25]. The BDI-FS is a screening instrument that minimises the possibility of yielding spuriously high estimates of depression for patients with medical problems by focusing on cognitive (as distinct from physical/somatic) symptoms of depression.…”