Development of the Chinese age norms of CES-D in urban area / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective: To test applicability of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) in different age groups in urban China, and to develop age norms. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the CES-D was administrated to 16047 community participants with average age of (37.7±21.3) years (age ranged 11～100) in 21 provinces, who were as the norming sample. Criterion validity was tested in 349 psychiatric patients with average age of (32.0±12.1) years (age ranged 16～81) in 4 cities. A subsample (199 workers, 100 col-lege students, and 30 teachers in Beijing, Dongguan, and Baotou) was drawn from the national sample to provide 8 week interval test-retest reliability. Results: The Cronbach α was 0.90 for the scale, and 0.68～0.86 for its fac-tors. The 8 week interval test-retest correlation was 0.49 for the scale (P <0.01) and 0.39～0.51 for factors (P<0.01) . The result of confirmatory factor analysis supported the original 4-factor structure (RMSEA=0.057, CFI =0.976, GFI=0.948) . Patients scored higher than community sample [(21.72±13.39 ) vs.(13.24±10.33),P <0.01], and depression patients scored the highest [(27.82±14.42), P<0.01] . Age difference was signifi-cant. Age groups over 60-year-old scored higher than all the other age groups under 60-year-old (P<0.01). Con-clusion The Chinese version of CES-D shows good refiability and validity across all ages in urban population-