Reliability and Validity of the 8-Item Patient Health Questionnaire for Measuring Depressive Symptoms of Latino Emerging Adults

Short, reliable, and valid depression measures are needed for both social scientists and as screening tools in therapeutic practice. Using self-report data, 2 cross-sectional studies were conducted to find evidence to support the validity of the PHQ-8 for Latina/o university students. Study 1 used a psychology subject pool to recruit 257 Latina/o college students (23% men, 77% women; mean age = 19.5). Study 2 examined Latina/o women and men separately. The participants came from a subject pool and upper-division general education classes to recruit 859 Latina/os (33% men, 67% women; mean age = 19.7). In Studies 1 and 2, confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) indicated that both a 1-factor solution and 2-factor solution fit the data; however, the 2 factors were highly correlated, so a single factor was recommended. In Study 1, the PHQ-8 had good convergent validity with the Center for Epidemiologic Study's Inventory for depressed mood (Kohout, Berkman, Evans, & Cornoni-Huntley, 1993). In Study 2, the PHQ-8 was invariant (i.e., configural, metric, scalar) between women and men. In both studies, the PHQ-8 was negatively related to quality of life and positively related to anxiety, parental psychological control, and rumination. In Study 2, the PHQ-8 was also positively related to family cohesion. Hence, it was determined the PHQ-8 had adequate psychometric properties with male and female Latina/o university students. Thus, the PHQ-8 is recommended as a brief measure that can be easily implemented by social scientists, medical professionals, or clinicians as a nonfatiguing assessment tool for measuring depressive symptoms. Se necesitan cuestionarios de depresión cortos, fiables, y válidos tanto para que los científicos de ciencias sociales y los terapéuticas en práctica puedan usarlos como herramientas para medir la depresión. Utilizando los datos de un auto-informe, se llevaron a cabo dos estudios para encontrar evidencia y apoyar la validez del PHQ-8 entre estudiantes Latinos/as de universidad. Estudio 1 recluto 257 estudiantes Latinos del departamento de psicología (23% hombres, 77% mujeres, edad promedio = 19.5). Estudio 2 examinó los hombres y mujeres Latinos por separado. Los participantes provenían de la división de las clases generales y fueron 859 latinos (34% hombres, 66% mujeres, edad promedio = 19.7). En los estudios 1 y 2, Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio (AFC) indicaron que tanto una solución de un factor y una solución de dos factores se ajustan a