Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Canada.
J Affect Disord. 2019 Jun 15;253:394-401. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.05.010. Epub 2019 May 6.
The Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale (KADS) has been studied across Canada and some other countries during the past almost 15 years. The scale is a self-report tool to diagnose and monitor clinical depression in adolescents. A brief review of previous studies on KADS showed the lack of evaluation of KADS fairness/equivalence in measuring depression among identified groups.
To examine the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the KADS, responses of 407 participants were analyzed using item response theory (IRT) and ordinal logistic regression (OLR). Relevant measures of effect size were utilized to interpret the results.
Findings of the parallel factor analysis confirmed unidimensionality of the KADS and the partial credit IRT model found to be the best fitting model for analyzing the scale. OLR analysis detected three items across gender and one item across marital status to function differentially. An assessment of effect sizes implied negligible differences for practical considerations.
A note of caution is necessary with respect to interpreting results of measurement invariance across Gender. The sample analyzed in this study was predominantly female and this might have affected our findings. A similar analysis with a more balanced sample is recommended.
This study was a significant step towards providing theoretical and practical information regarding the assessment of depression among adolescents by presenting adequate evidence regarding the psychometric properties of KADS-11. Future studies may look at different methods for assessing invariance and different groups for strengthening conclusions with respect to the KADS.
Kutcher 青少年抑郁量表（KADS）在过去的近 15 年中在加拿大和其他一些国家进行了研究。该量表是一种自我报告工具，用于诊断和监测青少年的临床抑郁症。对 KADS 以往研究的简要回顾表明，缺乏对 KADS 在衡量特定群体抑郁程度方面的公平性/等效性的评估。
为了检验 KADS 的心理测量特性和测量不变性，使用项目反应理论（IRT）和有序逻辑回归（OLR）对 407 名参与者的反应进行了分析。利用相关的效应量度量标准来解释结果。
平行因子分析的结果证实了 KADS 的单维性，并且部分信用 IRT 模型被发现是分析该量表的最佳拟合模型。OLR 分析发现，有三个项目在性别上存在差异，一个项目在婚姻状况上存在差异。对效应量的评估表明，在实际考虑方面存在微不足道的差异。
在解释性别层面的测量不变性结果时需要谨慎。本研究分析的样本主要是女性，这可能影响了我们的发现。建议使用更平衡的样本进行类似的分析。
本研究朝着为青少年抑郁症评估提供理论和实践信息迈出了重要一步，通过提供关于 KADS-11 的心理测量特性的充分证据。未来的研究可以考虑评估不变性的不同方法和不同群体，以加强关于 KADS 的结论。
