Authors: WEBER, S.; TERHORST, L.

Source: Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing, Volume 17, Number 7, September 2010 , pp. 621-627(7)

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Abstract:

Accessible summary

• Commonly used mental health assessment instruments for measuring depression in adolescents need to be tested and validated with diverse samples of subjects in order to determine if the instrument produces different results with different sub-populations of youth and, if so, to systematically describe these patterns.

• There has been some recent speculation in the scientific literature that adolescents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender may experience depression in ways different from the general population of youth. These differences could result in altered scores and outcomes on assessment tools that were standardized with a general sample.

• After testing, it appears that the factor structure and other psychometric features of the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale-2 revealed in a sample of sexual minority youth is little different from the factor structure that was reflected in the large general sample of youth on which the instrument was originally normed and scaled.

• Nurses and other mental health clinicians who use the RADS-2 with youth who are sexual minorities can be confident that scores and other results, including the established cut-off points, also apply to LGBT youth. Abstract

First-stage measures of depressive symptoms need to demonstrate accuracy in capturing depression in diverse populations of youth. The research question in this study asked, `How is the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale-2nd Edition (RADS-2) factor structure expressed in a sample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer adolescent students?' Reliability, validity and principal components with orthogonal rotation factor analysis testing were conducted on a sample of 265 school-based adolescents in grades 7-12, including 72 girls and 193 boys, who sought guidance for sexual orientation or gender identity issues in this secondary data analysis. Four factors were identified that each demonstrates adequate internal consistency reliability. The RADS-2 effectively captures the features of depressive symptoms in sexual minority adolescents.

Keywords: adolescence; depression; psychometric testing; reliability; sexual minorities; validity

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2010.01563.x

Publication date: 2010-09-01

Related content

• In this: publication
• By this: publisher
• In this Subject: Neurology & Psychiatry
• By this author: WEBER, S. ;  TERHORST, L.

Website © Publishing Technology. Article copyright remains with the publisher, society or author(s) as specified within the article.

• Terms and conditions
• Privacy policy
• Information for advertisers