Measuring depressive mood in elderly Israeli: reliability and validity of the Depression Adjective Check Lists

To establish the psychometric properties of the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List (DACL) with elderly Israeli, a 1981 Hebrew version of the DACL by Lomranz, Lubin, Eyal, and Medini, along with the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and Cantril's Self-anchoring Striving Scale, were administered to 86 independently functioning elderly persons (35 men and 51 women) living in a home for the aged. Reliability estimates (alphas and test-retest) were moderate to high; validity estimates (concurrent and construct) were again moderate to high. It was concluded that the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List is suitable for use with elderly Israeli.