Validation of Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale in an Indonesian population: a scale adaptation study

This study aims to adapt the English-language Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to the Indonesian language and evaluate the validity and reliability of the adapted version (ie, HADS-Indonesia).

A cross-sectional study was conducted between June and November 2018. First, a translation and back-translation process was conducted by a committee consisting of the researchers, a psychiatrist, a methodology consultant and two translators. Face and convergent validity and test-retest reliability evaluations were conducted. Next, structural validity and internal consistency analyses were performed. An intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) test evaluated the scale's test-retest reliability. A Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was calculated to evaluate the correlation between HADS-Indonesia and Zung's Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) for convergent validity evidence. Next, a structural validity analysis using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and an internal consistency evaluation based on Cronbach's alpha was conducted.

This study was conducted in three villages in Jatinangor subdistrict, Sumedang Regency, West Java province, Indonesia; the villages were chosen based on their profiles.

A total of 200 participants (male: n=91, 45.50% and female: n=109, 54.50%), with a mean age of 42.41 (14.25) years, were enrolled in this study using a convenience sampling method. The inclusion criteria were age ≥18 years old with basic Indonesian language literacy.

The overall HADS-Indonesia's ICC value was 0.98. There was a significant positive correlation between HADS-Indonesia's anxiety subscale and Zung's SAS (rs=0.45, p=0.030) and between the depression subscale of HADS-Indonesia and Zung's SDS (rs=0.58, p<0.001). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin statistics (KMO) (KMO=0.89) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (χ2(91, N=200)=1052.38, p<0.001)) indicated an adequate number of samples for EFA. All items' commonality was >0.40 and the average inter-item correlation was 0.36. EFA yielded a 2-factor solution explaining 50.80% (40.40%+10.40%) of the total variance. All items from the original HADS were retained, including its original subscales. The adapted HADS-Anxiety subscale consisted of seven items (alpha=0.85), and the HADS-Depression subscale consisted of seven items (alpha=0.80).

HADS-Indonesia is a valid and reliable instrument for use in the general population of Indonesia. However, further studies are warranted to provide more sophisticated validity and reliability evidence.