RESPONSES TO A SELF-ADMINISTERED DEPRESSION SCALE AMONG YOUNGER ADOLESCENTS IN JAPAN

Response patterns on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression S cale (CES-D) items among Japanese adolescents were compared with those of their U.S. counterparts. The data were obtained from approximately 1,500 junior high school students, aged 12-15 years. Japanese respons es to positively worded items markedly differed from those of American adolescents, whereas responses to negatively worded items were compar able in the two groups. This resulted in poor psychometric properties for the CES-D and spurious higher positive subscale and whole scale sc ores among the Japanese sample. It is possible that Japanese responden ts tend to suppress positive affect expression and, thus, the positive ly worded questioning is presumably inappropriate for Japanese samples .