Department of Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22453-900, Brazil.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Extremadura, 06006 Badajoz, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 May 31;20(11):6009. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20116009.
Clinical psychologists often use the Beck Depression Inventory, 2nd edition (BDI-II), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) to aid in the diagnosis of mental health issues and verify the effectiveness of treatments. Despite this common practice, studies that implement a cross-cultural design to check psychometric properties and the invariance of these scales are still scarce in the literature, which can lead to biased results that prevent comparisons among different groups. The present study investigated the internal structure of both tools and their level of invariance. From a representative sample of undergraduate students from Spain ( = 1216), Portugal ( = 426), and Brazil ( = 315), Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis were performed. The results revealed suitable fit indices for the two-factor structure of the BDI-II and BAI, assessed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis procedures. Additionally, the two-factor model of the BDI-II reached invariant properties at three levels, whereas the structural model of the BAI did not. Altogether, these results suggest using the BDI-II in this group in these three countries and imply that BAI scores should be interpreted cautiously.
临床心理学家通常使用贝克抑郁量表第二版（BDI-II）和贝克焦虑量表（BAI）来辅助诊断心理健康问题，并验证治疗效果。尽管这种做法很常见，但在文献中，仍缺乏采用跨文化设计来检查这些量表的心理测量特性和不变性的研究，这可能导致有偏差的结果，从而妨碍不同群体之间的比较。本研究调查了这两种工具的内部结构及其不变性水平。从西班牙（n = 1216）、葡萄牙（n = 426）和巴西（n = 315）的代表性本科生样本中，进行了验证性因素分析和多群组验证性因素分析。结果表明，BDI-II 和 BAI 的两因素结构通过验证性因素分析程序评估具有适当的拟合指数。此外，BDI-II 的两因素模型在三个水平上达到了不变的特性，而 BAI 的结构模型则没有。总的来说，这些结果表明在这三个国家的这一群体中可以使用 BDI-II，并且意味着 BAI 分数的解释应该谨慎。
