THE BECK DEPRESSION INVENTORY - TESTING FOR ITS FACTORIAL VALIDITY AND INVARIANCE ACROSS GENDER FOR BULGARIAN NONCLINICAL ADOLESCENTS

Based on a community sample of 691 Bulgarian high school adolescents ( male N = 293; females N = 398), the purposes of the study were two-fol d: (a) to test for the factorial validity of a translated version of t he Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) separately for males and females; a nd (b) to test for the invariance of its factorial structure across ge nder. Confirmatory factor analytic findings replicated past research i n showing that, although a second-order factor structure best describe d the data for both males and females, there was some evidence of diff erential item functioning across gender. These gender differences are discussed from both a substantive and a methodological perspective. Co pyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.