Validation of the Brief Screen for Depression in a Jamaican cohort

Research on depression in Jamaicans has been limited by the absence of a psychometrically sound measure of depression. This project attempts to rectify this problem by exploring the concurrent and discriminant validity of the Brief Screen for Depression (BSD) using a sample of 244 students attending the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Participants were administered the BSD along with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D) the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale - Revised, (UCLA-R) and the Responding Desirably on Attitudes and Opinions scale (RD16). Overall, the BSD was found to have an acceptable level of concurrent validity as evidenced by high correlations with scores on the BDI (0.64) and the CES-D (0.62), and an acceptable level of discriminant validity as demonstrated through moderate correlations with the UCLA Loneliness Scale (0.40). In addition, the BSD was found to possess a moderate degree of sensitivity in identifying individuals who may be experiencing clinically significant symptoms of depression.