Confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck Anxiety and Depression Inventories in patients with major depression

The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, A.T., Epstein, N., Brown, G., Steer, R.A., 1988. An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: psychometric properties. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 56, 893-897) is intended to assess clinical anxiety symptoms that are distinct from depressed mood, and there is some preliminary empirical support for this differential assessment. The BAI may serve a useful complementary role when used with the popular Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G., 1979. Cognitive Therapy of Depression: A Treatment Manual. Guilford Press, New York, NY; Beck, A.T., Ward, C.H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., Erbaugh, J., 1961. An inventory for measuring depression. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 4, 561-571), in patients with mood and/or anxiety disorders. Accordingly, the present paper reports the results of the first confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck scales in a homogeneous, clinically depressed sample (137 outpatients with non-psychotic major depressive disorder). Results indicated that a multidimensional model of separate anxiety and depression factors had good fit to the data. However, the parameter estimate was very high (0.784) and a unidimensional, single-factor model of negative affectivity approached the criteria for good fit. It was concluded that the Beck Anxiety and Depression Inventories assess distinct anxiety and depression phenomena to a limited extent when used in a clinically depressed sample.