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. 2013 Dec 2:1:2050312113514576.
doi: 10.1177/2050312113514576. eCollection 2013.

Performance of the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale for caregiving research

Elena M Andresen  1 , Katherine Byers  2 , John Friary  3 , Karl Kosloski  4 , Rhonda Montgomery  5
Affiliations

Performance of the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale for caregiving research

Elena M Andresen et al. SAGE Open Med. .

Abstract

Objectives: The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CESD) scale has been useful in a broad spectrum of health research on patient and population outcomes. A brief version is used when depressive symptoms are not the primary focus. Rasch (item response) analysis previously demonstrated potential problems with positively worded items. We tested the 10-item CESD (CESD-10) scale and considered an 8-item version with both psychometric and Rasch analyses.

Methods: This was a special sample of 2067 caregivers from three existing US databases. We describe item response patterns and internal constancy in addition to Rasch scale results.

Results: There were few problems with missing data, and internal consistency was high (alpha = 0.86-0.88) for both CESD versions. Rasch analysis indicated that one of the positive items ("hopeful about future") could be dropped.

Conclusions: We partly confirmed prior work that suggested dropping positive items for the CESD-10. Among caregivers, item-level problems and scaling problems seem minimal. At present, there is not a strong rationale for dropping the CESD-10 positive items: the one poorly performing positive item might be explained by the special caregiver sample.

Keywords: Psychometrics; caregiving; depression; questionnaires/standards.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: None of the authors has any conflict of interest with the current publication. R.M. is a lead for the program from which the data were derived (TCARE); however, this article is a secondary data analysis of the measurement of the depression instrument used in that study, not a description nor advocate for the intervention. E.M.A. is the first author of the article introducing this CESD-10 version published in 1994, but derives no financial benefit from the instrument which is in the public domain. The research for this article was conducted independently of any funding except as the authors were paid as staff and faculty of their respective universities.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
CESD-10. Person map of items based on 2067 caregivers. CESD-10: 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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