Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of Children's Depression Inventory in Iranian Adolescents

Objectives: Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) is a self-report tool for measuring depression in children and adolescents. In this study, the psychometric properties of the Persian version of CDI were investigated in an Iranian adolescent population.Methods: This study was conducted on a sample of 480 adolescent boys and girls in the age range of 12-18 years. The results showed that 23.6% of the study population were 11-13 years old, 62.1% were 14-16 years old, and 14.3% were 17-18 years old. Also, 48.5% of the sample were girls, and 51.5% were boys. To investigate the convergent and divergent validity, Beck's Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) and Teenage Inventory of Social Skills were used, respectively.Results: The reliability coefficient of CDI, based on Cronbach's alpha, indicated the relatively high internal consistency of the items (0.907). The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that CDI has a saturated factor, explaining 50.11% of the variance in the data. Also, goodness-of-fit indices of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model is well suited for explaining depression. The present results also showed a negative correlation between children's depression and the social skills subscale and a positive correlation between children's depression and BDI-II score.Conclusions: The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed. It can be concluded that the Persian version of CDI has adequate reliability and validity. Therefore, it can be used as a useful tool for early screening of depression in adolescents due to its easy use and specific design for children and adolescents.