Psychometric Properties and Modification of the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale Among Chinese Oldest-old and Centenarians: a Mixed-methods Study

Overview

Journal BMC Geriatr

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Geriatrics

Date 2022 Feb 20

PMID 35183102

Authors

Chi Zhang

Hao Zhang

Minghao Zhao

Chen Chen

Zhongquan Li

Deping Liu

Yali Zhao

Yao Yao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: The 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) shows good performance in detecting depression among older persons, but its applicability has not been well studied in non-Western oldest-old adults and centenarians. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric property of the GDS-15 and a simplified version among a large representative longevous population in China.

Methods: A total of 1624 individuals (786 oldest-old persons aged from 80 to 99 years; 838 centenarians aged 100+ years) participated in this study. Home interviews with structured questionnaires were conducted to collect sociodemographic data. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Chinese GDS-15 version. We implemented mixed methods for the psychometric evaluation of the GDS-15. Cronbach's α coefficient and item-total correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the internal consistency. A standard expert consultation was conducted to test the content validity of each item. Multiple factor analyses were used to explore the optimal factor structure and measurement invariance.

Results: The α coefficient of the GDS-15 was 0.745, while two items impaired the overall consistency reliability. Nineteen experts rated the applicability for each item and provided removal suggestion. Five items with less validity were removed, and a simplified 10-item GDS model with three-factor structure was proposed as an optimal solution. The GDS-10 model showed factorial equivalence across age, sex, residence, and education in multi-group confirmatory factor analyses.

Conclusions: The original GDS-15 has acceptable internal reliability, known-group validity, and concurrent validity among Chinese community-dwelling oldest-old and centenarians; however we provided preliminary evidence indicating that individual items related to somatic function or social activities may not be applicable for this population. The modified GDS-10 can be proposed as a potentially more practical and comprehensible instrument for depression screening.

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