A PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION OF THE BECK DEPRESSION INVENTORY - II

This article provides psychometric information on the second edition o f the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; A. T. Beck, R. A. Steer, & G. K. Brown, 1996), with respect to internal consistency, factorial vali dity, and gender differences. Both measures demonstrated high internal reliability in the full student sample. Significant differences betwe en the mean BDI and BDI-II scores necessitated the development of new cutoffs for analogue research on the BDI-II. Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a 2-factor solution op timally summarized the data for both versions of the inventory and acc ounted for a cumulative 41% and 46% of the common variance in BDI and BDI-II responses, respectively. These factor solutions were reliably c ross-validated, although the importance of each factor varied by gende r. The authors conclude that the BDI-II is a stronger instrument than the BDI in terms of its factor structure.