Department of Education, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, Weill Cornell Medical College, Ithaca, NY, USA.
BMC Geriatr. 2022 Feb 19;22(1):144. doi: 10.1186/s12877-022-02833-x.
The 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) shows good performance in detecting depression among older persons, but its applicability has not been well studied in non-Western oldest-old adults and centenarians. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric property of the GDS-15 and a simplified version among a large representative longevous population in China.
A total of 1624 individuals (786 oldest-old persons aged from 80 to 99 years; 838 centenarians aged 100+ years) participated in this study. Home interviews with structured questionnaires were conducted to collect sociodemographic data. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Chinese GDS-15 version. We implemented mixed methods for the psychometric evaluation of the GDS-15. Cronbach's α coefficient and item-total correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the internal consistency. A standard expert consultation was conducted to test the content validity of each item. Multiple factor analyses were used to explore the optimal factor structure and measurement invariance.
The α coefficient of the GDS-15 was 0.745, while two items impaired the overall consistency reliability. Nineteen experts rated the applicability for each item and provided removal suggestion. Five items with less validity were removed, and a simplified 10-item GDS model with three-factor structure was proposed as an optimal solution. The GDS-10 model showed factorial equivalence across age, sex, residence, and education in multi-group confirmatory factor analyses.
The original GDS-15 has acceptable internal reliability, known-group validity, and concurrent validity among Chinese community-dwelling oldest-old and centenarians; however we provided preliminary evidence indicating that individual items related to somatic function or social activities may not be applicable for this population. The modified GDS-10 can be proposed as a potentially more practical and comprehensible instrument for depression screening.
15 项老年抑郁量表（GDS-15）在检测老年人抑郁方面表现良好，但在非西方的最年长成年人和百岁老人中，其适用性尚未得到充分研究。本研究旨在评估 GDS-15 及其简化版在中国大型代表性长寿人群中的心理测量特性。
共有 1624 人（786 名 80-99 岁的最年长成年人；838 名 100 岁以上的百岁老人）参与了这项研究。通过家庭访谈和结构化问卷收集社会人口统计学数据。使用中文版 GDS-15 版本测量抑郁症状。我们采用混合方法对 GDS-15 进行心理测量评估。Cronbach's α 系数和项目总分相关系数用于评估内部一致性。进行了标准专家咨询以测试每个项目的内容有效性。采用多元因子分析探索最佳因子结构和测量不变性。
GDS-15 的α系数为 0.745，而有两个项目降低了整体一致性可靠性。19 位专家对每个项目的适用性进行了评估，并提出了删除建议。删除了 5 项有效性较低的项目，提出了一个具有三因素结构的简化 10 项 GDS 模型，作为最佳解决方案。在多组验证性因子分析中，GDS-10 模型在年龄、性别、居住地和教育程度方面具有因子等效性。
原始的 GDS-15 在我国社区居住的最年长成年人和百岁老人中具有可接受的内部可靠性、已知组有效性和同时有效性；然而，我们提供了初步证据表明，与躯体功能或社会活动相关的个别项目可能不适用于该人群。改良的 GDS-10 可作为一种更实用、更易理解的抑郁筛查工具。
