Psychometric properties of CES-D/IS in university population in Durango city, Mexico

Introduction Depression has been frequently related with suicidal behavior. Evidences of depressive symptoms in adolescents and young people with suicidal ideation or suicidal intention have been showed in severa. studies. For that reason, it is necessary to have an adequate instrument to measure and identify some characteristics associated with self-destructive behavior in university students. Objective To evaluate the psychometric properties of CES-D/IS in students at the University Juarez of the State of Durango (UJED). Material and Methods The universe of study selected for the schooling period of 2008 consisted of 943 students from 13 academic units. CES-D/IS scale was applied. Before the interview informed consent was obtained from all the participants and they were informed about the nature and scope of the study. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the instrument validity, and Cronbach alpha for internal consistency. Further analysis included Student t-test and Mann-Withney U test. A p. value below 0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance. The data were analyzed with SPSS, version 15 and R v 2.7.2. Results The total scale showed a high value of internal consistency (alpha=0.89), and similar results for academic areas, for age and sex. Factor analysis showed a four-factor structure that accounted for 45.5% of variance. Conclusions CES-D/IS scale has adequate psychometric properties in reliability and in validity.