For young adults, depression is the most common clinical disorder. Among all populations, including college students, depression is one of the most significant, disabling, and harmful mental disorders, and is one of the top three leading causes of death for adolescents and young adults. Studies indicate that many individuals suffering from depression are not getting adequate treatment, and in many cases no treatment at all. A possible reason for this may be a lack of detection of the symptoms of depression. When trying to address this important issue, it is paramount that mental health professionals use testing methods that are accurate and sensitive to culture, language, and general diversity, because a person’s background can have a significant impact on how they respond to items on a depression questionnaire.
The most common tool mental health professionals use to measure and diagnose depression is the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). This study seeks to examine this test’s scalar equivalence (essentially that the test is measuring two different groups equally) regarding gender and race. While little is known regarding the relation between depression and gender, even less is known about depression and race.
This study sampled 1229 students from a large state university in the southeastern region of the United States. The sample included 145 Black students and 1031 White students, 684 females and 545 males. Each of the students filled out the BDI-II twenty-one question form which asked them to rate on a scale of 0 to 3 how they have been feeling in the last 2 weeks regarding certain symptoms of depression (0 being no symptoms, 3 being severe symptoms).
In terms of race, Black and White participants answered 16 of the 21 items on the test similarly. In regards to gender, men and women answered 19 of the 21 questions similarly. While these findings do indicate some possible biases in BDI-II, the results are not significant and this study found the test to be a reliable and valid measure for screening both males and females as well as Black and White American college students for depression.
Further research needed before implementing any major changes to the BDI-II; however, this study does indicate that researchers may want to pay closer attention to which items on this depression screening may need to be adjusted based on differences between gender and racial groups in college populations.
Written by Buddy Toth, Visiting Student in Research.