Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of Children's Depression Inventory in Iranian Adolescents.

Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) is a self-report tool for measuring depression in children and adolescents. In this study, the psychometric properties of the Persian version of CDI were investigated in an Iranian adolescent population. This study was conducted on a sample of 480 adolescent boys and girls in the age range of 12-18 years. The results showed that 23.6% of the study population were 11-13 years old, 62.1% were 14-16 years old, and 14.3% were 17-18 years old. Also, 48.5% of the sample were girls, and 51.5% were boys. To investigate the convergent and divergent validity, Beck's Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) and Teenage Inventory of Social Skills were used, respectively. The reliability coefficient of CDI, based on Cronbach's alpha, indicated the relatively high internal consistency of the items (0.907). The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that CDI has a saturated factor, explaining 50.11% of the variance in the data. Also, goodness-of-fit indices of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model is well suited for explaining depression. The present results also showed a negative correlation between children's depression and the social skills subscale and a positive correlation between children's depression and BDI-II score. The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed. It can be concluded that the Persian version of CDI has adequate reliability and validity. Therefore, it can be used as a useful tool for early screening of depression in adolescents due to its easy use and specific design for children and adolescents.