The Meaning of Depression Symptoms for Young Black Men Employed at a Community-Based Reentry Facility

Only 10% of Black men are predicted to experience depression despite widespread disparities in education, employment, socioeconomic status, and incarceration. Gender, cultural, and situational variables force divergence from traditional symptoms of depression and complicate accurate identification of depression in young Black men. Twenty young Black men who were employed by a community-based reentry facility were interviewed about their perceptions of items on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. Generally, participants endorsed CES-D questions that screen for depressive, somatic, and positive affect symptoms. However, participants rejected questions that screen for negative impact on interpersonal relationships by indicating that these symptoms were not related to depression and offering alternative interpretations of the questions. Questions in the interpersonal domain need restructuring and should be supplemented with interviews to mitigate misinterpretation.