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Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II)

Portuguese version

Martins, A. (2000). As manifestações clínicas da depressão na adolescência [Clinical manifestations of depression in adolescence]. Dissertação de Mestrado. Porto: Faculdade de Medicina do Porto. [Master dissertation].

Oliveira-Brochado, F. (2013). Inventário de Depressão de Beck (BDI-II): Estudos de validação e dados normativos para a população portuguesa. [Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II): Validation studies and normative data for the Portuguese population]. Tese de doutoramento em Ciências Biomédicas. Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto (ICABAS-UP) [Ph.D thesis].

Original version

Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Psychological Corporation.

Theoretical background

Consisting of 21 items, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), allows the assessment of the presence and severity of depressive symptomatology in adults and adolescents over 13 years of age. It was developed as an instrument whose total score is an indicator of the presence and severity of depressive symptoms consistent with the DSM-IV (APA, 1994), and not as a clinical diagnostic tool (Beck et al., 1996).

Description

Assessment Domain: Depressive symptomatology.

Type of Instrument: Self-report questionnaire.

Number of items: 21 items.

Application: Individual or group, 5-10 minutes.

Population: Adult and adolescent (≥ 13 years old).

Dimensions

The results for each of the 21 items range from 0 (low) to 3 (high), this value reflecting the severity of the symptom to be assessed by each item (0 = no symptom; 1 = mild symptoms; 2 = symptoms moderate; and 3 = severe symptoms).
The cutoff points (Beck et al., 1996) defined are: 0 to 13 – “minimal” depressive symptomatology; 14 to 19 – “mild”; 20 to 28 – “moderate”; more than 29 – “severe” or “severe”.

Studies

Research carried out in Portugal with the BDI-II indicates different levels of depressive symptoms in the Portuguese population (N=2,401) identified through: Global average scores of 11.01 (SD=9.15); 70% of subjects with “minimal” depressive symptomatology [0-13]); 15% with “mild” depressive symptomatology [14-19]; 9% with “moderate” depressive symptomatology [20-28] and 6% with “severe” depressive symptomatology [29-63] (Oliveira-Brochado, Simões, & Paúl, 2014).

Reliability

Internal consistency: Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.91 for the main sample (N=2,401), of 0.895 for the student sample (N=230) and of 0.925 for the clinical sample (N=54).

Temporal stability: correlation coefficient of 0.90 between two administrations, spaced by three weeks. The reliability of equivalent versions was supported by a correlation coefficient between the traditional version and the computer version of 0.985, the version in which the order of response to items was inverted of 0.97 and in which the order of response to items was reversed. randomly generated value of 0.96 (Oliveira-Brochado, Simões, & Paúl, 2014).


Validity

Factorial structure: identified the Somatic-Affective and Cognitive (SA-C) model, in line with the model described by Beck et al. (1996), Steer et al. (1999) and Kacpi et al. (2008) for clinical samples and by Arnau et al. (2001) and Kojima et al. (2002) in non-clinical samples of primary care users.

Content validity: supported by a panel of experts in the Relevance and Specificity criteria and by a panel of depressed persons, in the Clarity and Usefulness criteria.

Convergent validity: corroborated by the high correlation coefficients obtained between the BDI-II and the CES-D scale (0.83), the HADS-Depression (0.82) and BSI-Depression subscale (0.75) in the sample of students; and the BDI-II and the CES-D scale (0.85), the subscale BSI-Depression (0.67) and HADS-Depression (0.71) in the clinical sample.

Discriminant validity: supported by correlation coefficients obtained with the subscales that measure anxiety lower than the subscales that measure depression, namely, with the BSI-Anxiety (0.59) and HADS-Anxiety (0.75) subscales, in the sample of students; and BSI-Anxiety (0.49) and HADS-Anxiety (0.66) in the clinical sample (Oliveira-Brochado, Simões, & Paúl, 2014).

References

  1. Oliveira-Brochado, F., Simões, M. R., & Paúl, C. (2014). Inventário de Depressão de Beck (BDI-II) [Beck Depression Inventory-BDI-II]. In L. S. Almeida, M. R. Simões, & M. M. Gonçalves (Eds.), Instrumentos e contextos de avaliação psicológica [instruments and contexts of psychological assessment] (Vol. II; pp. 187-209). Almedina Edições.
  2. Oliveira-Brochado, F. (2013). Inventário de Depressão de Beck (BDI-II): Estudos de validação e dados normativos para a população portuguesa [Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II): Validation studies and normative data for the Portuguese population]. Tese de doutoramento em Ciências Biomédicas. Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto (ICABAS-UP). [Ph. D Grant, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/24636/2005/Psicologia)].
  3. Arnau, R. C., Meagher, M. W., Margaret, P. N., & Bramson, R. (2001). Psychometric evaluation of the Beck Depression Inventory-II with primary care medical patients. Health Psychology, 20(2), 112-119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.20.2.112
  4. Kapci, E. G., Uslu, R., Turkcapar, H., & Karaoglan, A. (2008). Beck Depression Inventory II: Evaluation of the psychometric properties and cutoff points in a Turkish adult population. Depression and Anxiety, 25(10), E104-E110. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20371
  5. Steer, R. A., Ball, R., Ranieri, W. F., & Beck, A. T. (1999). Dimensions of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in clinically depressed outpatients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 117-128. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199901)55:1<117::AID-JCLP12>3.0.CO;2-A
  6. Kojima, M., Furukawa, T. A., Takahashi, H., Kawai, M., Nagaya, T., & Tokudome, S. (2002). Cross-cultural validation of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Japan. Psychiatry Research, 110, 291-299. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199901)55:1<117::AID-JCLP12>3.0.CO;2-A

Other publications relating to Portuguese research with the BDI-II:

  1. Bos, S. C., Pereira, A. T., Marques, M., Maia, B. R., Soares, M. J., Valente, J., Gomes, A. A., Macedo, A., & de Azevedo, M. H. (2009). The BDI-II factor structure in pregnancy and postpartum: Two or three factors? European Psychiatry, 24, 334-340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2008.10.003
  2. Campos, R. C., & Gonçalves, B. (2011). The Portuguese version of Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II): Preliminary psychometric data with two non-clinical samples. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 27(4), 258-264. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000072
  3. Campos, R. C., Gonçalves, B., & Thalbourne, M. (2009). Preliminary psychometric data for a Portuguese scale to assess history of depressive symptomatology with a college student sample. Psychological Reports, 104(3), 1015-1018. https://doi.org/10.2466/PR0.104.3.1015-1018
  4. Coelho, R., Martins, A., & Barros, H. (2002). Clinical profiles relating gender and depressive symptoms among adolescents ascertained by the Beck Depression Inventory II. European Psychiatry, 17(4), 222-226. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0924-9338(02)00663-6
  5. Martins, A. (2000). As manifestações clínicas da depressão na adolescência [Clinical manifestations of depression in adolescence]. Dissertação de Mestrado. Porto: Faculdade de Medicina do Porto. [Master dissertation]
  6. Martins, A., Coelho, R., & Barros, H. (1997). Impacte do stress da época de exames e sintomatologia depressiva numa amostra de estudantes universitários [Impact of exam time stress and depressive symptoms in a sample of university students]. Revista de Psiquiatria da Faculdade de Medicina do Porto, 9(3-4), 35-39.
  7. Oliveira-Brochado, F., & Oliveira-Brochado, A. (2008). Estudo da presença de sintomatologia depressiva na adolescência [Study of the presence of depressive symptoms in adolescence]. Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública, 26(2), 27-36.
  8. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/95344
  9. Pereira, A. T., Bos, S. C., Marques, M., Maia, B. R., Soares, M. J., Valente, J., Gomes, A. A., Macedo, A., & de Azevedo, M. H. (2011). The postpartum depression screening scale: is it valid to screen for antenatal depression? Archives of Mental Health, 14(3), 227-238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-010-0178-y