Psychometric investigation of two Turkish adaptations and short form of the beck depression inventory

Abstract

In this study, Beck Depresyon Ol~egi -BDO- adapted from the original Beck Depression lnventory-BDI- (1961) by Tegin (1980) and Beck Depresyon Envanteri -BDE- adapted from the revised BDI (1978) by Hisli-Sahin (1984-89) were investigated in terms of their reliability and validity on the same sample. Also, items of the short form of the BDI which were derived from the revised one were reanalyzed from the data of the BDE as a preliminary step for the adaptation of the BDE-Ktsa Form, BDE-KF. Analyses were carried out on a sample of 161 university students, 100 females and 61 males. Half of the participants took the tests in the order of the BDE, MMPI-D, BDO and the other half took them in reverse order. In both test-taking orders the mean scores of the BDE were almost equal whereas the mean scores of the BDO changed significantly. In the paired and independent sample t-tests of corresponding items, more items that were significantly different were found in the BDO due to test-taking order. However, both the BDE, BDO and BDE-KF were found to be reliable and valid instruments in terms of internal consistency, item-total correlations, correlations with the MMPI-D and factorial discrimination of symptom groups reported by Beck. It is recommended that the BDE should be preferred since it is more stable and consistent·across different test-taking orders beside being the adaptation of the revised BDI and the BDE-KF should be used after its validation in a clinical sample.