Beck Depresion

Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research (2005) 38: 399-408 Validation of the Beck Depression Inventory ISSN 0100-879X

399

Validation of the Beck Depression Inventory for a Portuguese-speaking Chinese community in Brazil
Y.-P. Wang1,2, L.H. Andrade1 and C. Gorenstein1,3
1Departamento

e Instituto de Psiquiatria (LIM-23), Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, SãoPaulo, SP, Brasil 2Departamento de Psiquiatria, Faculdade de Medicina de Santo Amaro, UNISA, São Paulo, SP, Brasil 3Departamento de Farmacologia, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil

Abstract
Correspondence
Y.-P. Wang Instituto de Psiquiatria Hospital das Clínicas, FM, USP R. Dr. Ovídio P. de Campos, 785 05403-010 São Paulo, SP Brasil Fax:+55-11-5087-9475. E-mail: gnap_inbox@hotmail.com Publication supported by FAPESP.

Received April 22, 2004 Accepted December 16, 2004

The objective of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties and cross-cultural validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) among ethnic Chinese living in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The study was conducted on 208 community individuals.Reliability and discriminant analysis were used to test the psychometric properties and validity of the BDI. Principal component analysis was performed to assess the BDI’s factor structure for the total sample and by gender. The mean BDI score was lower (6.74, SD = 5.98) than observed in Western counterparts and showed no gender difference, good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha 0.82), and highdiscrimination of depressive symptoms (75-100%). Factor analysis extracted two factors for the total sample and each gender: cognitive-affective dimension and somatic dimension. We conclude that depressive symptoms can be reliably assessed by the BDI in the Brazilian Chinese population, with a validity comparable to that for international studies. Indeed, cultural and measurement biases might haveinfluenced the response of Chinese subjects.

Key words
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Depressive symptoms Beck Depression Inventory Psychometric properties Validation of Depression Inventory Portuguese-speaking Chinese Factor analysis

Introduction
As the consequence of many migrations, Chinese communities can be found in almost every country in the world. The Chinese population is the planet’s largestethnic group, comprising one fourth of the world’s population, and any understanding of psychiatric disorders should take the Chinese people into account. Frequently attached to their indigenous behavioral norms and traditional cultural beliefs, Chinese immigrants are in

constant change. Their real mental health status is unknown and hard to capture, and is the result of experiences ofacculturation, social deprivation, uprootedness, adaptation, assimilation, Westernization, urbanization, coping style, and their own specific healthseeking behavior (1-5). The measurement of psychopathology in cross-cultural settings has often had serious limitations. This may be especially problematic regarding self-reporting scales for mood disorders, where the understanding of the
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meaning of affect-loaded items relies on the respondent’s interpretation. Reporting depressive symptoms may also be influenced by serious cultural biases in non-Western populations (e.g., language, social desirability of some behaviors), thereby resulting in poor validity. English-driven psychological advances are often adopted without any validation byresearchers in different countries, and for this reason, validating psychological assessment measures with non-Anglo populations is a very important endeavor. The original version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was introduced in 1961 (6), and its reliability and validity have been established across a broad spectrum of clinical and non-clinical populations (7). Translated into and validated...