School of Arts and Social Sciences, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong.
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
J Affect Disord. 2022 Jul 1;308:221-228. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.04.035. Epub 2022 Apr 13.
Major Depressive Disorder is a severe and highly disabling mental illness. Almost all self-reported questionnaires have overlooked the interpersonal symptoms of depression which are important across gender and culture. The Multidimensional Depression Assessment Scale (MDAS) developed by Cheung and Power (2012) entails comprehensive emotional, cognitive, somatic, and interpersonal subscales. It addresses the criticism that existing self-report depression scales might not cover sufficient phenomenological heterogeneity of depression. The current study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the MDAS across gender and four major ethnic groups of Caucasian, Black, Asian and Hispanic, including reliability and concurrent validity against the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD) and Patients Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). It also aimed to establish a stable factor structure across gender and ethnic groups and test the measurement invariance to enhance its potential for clinical use.
A community sample of 3499 participants from four ethnic groups were recruited via online crowdsourcing sites of Qualtrics and Amazon M Turk. Each individual completed a demographic questionnaire, the MDAS, CESD and PHQ-9.
There was good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha >0.90) and concurrent reliability across gender and ethnic groups. Strict measurement invariance was established for MDAS over a four-factor factor structure corresponding to the four subscales.
The MDAS showed good psychometric properties and measurement invariance of a four-factor structure, suggesting its potential to be used in clinical settings across gender and ethnic groups.
Participants all answered the questionnaires in English, which could hinder cultural variations in their expression of symptoms.
重度抑郁症是一种严重且高度致残的精神疾病。几乎所有的自我报告问卷都忽略了抑郁的人际症状，而这些症状在性别和文化上都很重要。由 Cheung 和 Power（2012 年）开发的多维抑郁评估量表（MDAS）包含全面的情感、认知、躯体和人际分量表。它解决了现有自我报告抑郁量表可能无法涵盖抑郁的充分现象学异质性的批评。本研究旨在评估 MDAS 在性别和白种人、黑种人、亚洲人和西班牙裔四个主要种族群体中的心理测量特性，包括与流行病学研究中心抑郁量表（CESD）和患者健康问卷（PHQ-9）的信度和同时效度。它还旨在建立跨性别和种族群体的稳定因子结构，并测试测量不变性，以提高其在临床应用中的潜力。
通过 Qualtrics 和 Amazon M Turk 的在线众包网站招募了来自四个种族的 3499 名社区样本参与者。每个人都完成了人口统计学问卷、MDAS、CESD 和 PHQ-9。
在性别和种族群体中，MDAS 具有良好的内部一致性（Cronbach's alpha >0.90）和同时可靠性。在对应于四个分量表的四因素结构上，建立了 MDAS 的严格测量不变性。
MDAS 表现出良好的心理测量特性和四因素结构的测量不变性，表明其有可能在跨性别和种族群体的临床环境中使用。
参与者都用英语回答问卷，这可能会阻碍他们在表达症状时的文化差异。
