Scoring Beck Depression Inventory 2

Scoring Beck Depression Inventory 2 of the most widely used self-report measures for depression. It consists of 21 items asking examinees to rate their feelings over the past two weeks. The BDI is easy to administer and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. Its sensitivity and specificity for detecting depressive symptoms is high. It has good internal consistency, a high one-week test-retest reliability and convergent validity with other depressive measures (Beck et al., 1996).

Several studies have shown that the BDI has strong construct and criterion-based validity. It has a high correlation with clinical ratings and other depression scales like the Hamilton Psychiatric Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD). It has also been shown to be able to discriminate between groups that differ in level of depression.

How to Score the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II)

However, it is important to keep in mind that the symptomatology of depression can vary by culture. For example, some cultures report fewer ‘cognitive’ symptoms such as self-criticism and negative thinking, and more ‘affective’ symptoms such as sadness, changes in sleep patterns or irritability.

In the Behavioral Measurements Letter of this issue of The Journal, Aaron T. Beck and Robert A. Steer present a new scoring system for the BDI-II, a complete revision of the original BDI. The new system enables clinicians to identify depression at the item level and to make gender comparisons using multigroup Rasch analysis. They also discuss the implications of their findings for future research and practice.