Beck Depression Inventory

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, BDI-1A, BDI-II), created by Aaron T. Beck, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory, one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of depression. Its development marked a shift among mental health professionals, who had until then, viewed depression from a psychodynamic perspective, instead of it being rooted in the patient's own thoughts.

Beck Depression Inventory
Purposemeasure severity of depression
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In its current version, the BDI-II is designed for individuals aged 13 and over, and is composed of items relating to symptoms of depression such as hopelessness and irritability, cognitions such as guilt or feelings of being punished, as well as physical symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss, and lack of interest in sex.[1]

There are three versions of the BDI—the original BDI, first published in 1961 and later revised in 1978 as the BDI-1A, and the BDI-II, published in 1996. The BDI is widely used as an assessment tool by health care professionals and researchers in a variety of settings.

The BDI was used as a model for the development of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), first published in 1979 by clinical psychologist Maria Kovacs.[2]

Development and history

According to Beck's publisher, 'When Beck began studying depression in the 1950s, the prevailing psychoanalytic theory attributed the syndrome to inverted hostility against the self.'[3] By contrast, the BDI was developed in a novel way for its time; by collating patients' verbatim descriptions of their symptoms and then using these to structure a scale which could reflect the intensity or severity of a given symptom.[1]

Beck drew attention to the importance of "negative cognitions" described as sustained, inaccurate, and often intrusive negative thoughts about the self.[4] In his view, it was the case that these cognitions caused depression, rather than being generated by depression.

Beck developed a triad of negative cognitions about the world, the future, and the self, which play a major role in depression. An example of the triad in action taken from Brown (1995) is the case of a student obtaining poor exam results:

  • The student has negative thoughts about the world, so he may come to believe he does not enjoy the class.
  • The student has negative thoughts about his future because he thinks he may not pass the class.
  • The student has negative thoughts about his self, as he may feel he does not deserve to be in college.[5]

The development of the BDI reflects that in its structure, with items such as "I have lost all of my interest in other people" to reflect the world, "I feel discouraged about the future" to reflect the future, and "I blame myself for everything bad that happens" to reflect the self. The view of depression as sustained by intrusive negative cognitions has had particular application in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to challenge and neutralize them through techniques such as cognitive restructuring.

BDI

The original BDI, first published in 1961,[6] consisted of twenty-one questions about how the subject has been feeling in the last week. Each question had a set of at least four possible responses, ranging in intensity. For example:

  • (0) I do not feel sad
  • (1) I feel sad.
  • (2) I am sad all the time and I can't snap out of it.
  • (3) I am so sad or unhappy that I can't stand it.

When the test is scored, a value of 0 to 3 is assigned for each answer and then the total score is compared to a key to determine the depression's severity. The standard cut-off scores were as follows:[7]

  • 0–9: indicates minimal depression
  • 10–18: indicates mild depression
  • 19–29: indicates moderate depression
  • 30–63: indicates severe depression.

Higher total scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms.

Some items on the original BDI had more than one statement marked with the same score. For instance, there are two responses under the Mood heading that score a 2: (2a) "I am blue or sad all the time and I can't snap out of it" and (2b) "I am so sad or unhappy that it is very painful".[1]

BDI-IA

The BDI-IA was a revision of the original instrument developed by Beck during the 1970s, and copyrighted in 1978. To improve ease of use, the "a and b statements" described above were removed, and respondents were instructed to endorse how they had been feeling during the preceding two weeks.[8][9] The internal consistency for the BDI-IA was good, with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of around 0.85, meaning that the items on the inventory are highly correlated with each other.[10]

However, this version retained some flaws; the BDI-IA only addressed six out of the nine DSM-III criteria for depression. This and other criticisms were addressed in the BDI-II.

BDI-II

The BDI-II was a 1996 revision of the BDI,[9] developed in response to the American Psychiatric Association's publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, which changed many of the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder.

Items involving changes in body image, hypochondriasis, and difficulty working were replaced. Also, sleep loss and appetite loss items were revised to assess both increases and decreases in sleep and appetite. All but three of the items were reworded; only the items dealing with feelings of being punished, thoughts about suicide, and interest in sex remained the same. Finally, participants were asked to rate how they have been feeling for the past two weeks, as opposed to the past week as in the original BDI.

Like the BDI, the BDI-II also contains about 21 questions, each answer being scored on a scale value of 0 to 3. Higher total scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms. The standardized cutoffs used differ from the original:

  • 0–13: minimal depression
  • 14–19: mild depression
  • 20–28: moderate depression
  • 29–63: severe depression.[11]

One measure of an instrument's usefulness is to see how closely it agrees with another similar instrument that has been validated against information from a clinical interview by a trained clinician. In this respect, the BDI-II is positively correlated with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale with a Pearson r of 0.71, showing good agreement. The test was also shown to have a high one-week test–retest reliability (Pearson's r = 0.93), suggesting that it was not overly sensitive to daily variations in mood.[12] The test also has high internal consistency (α = .91).[9]

Impact

The development of the BDI was an important event in psychiatry and psychology; it represented a shift in health care professionals' view of depression from a Freudian, psychodynamic perspective, to one guided by the patient's own thoughts or "cognitions".[3] It also established the principle that instead of attempting to develop a psychometric tool based on a possibly invalid theory, self-report questionnaires when analysed using techniques such as factor analysis can suggest theoretical constructs.

The BDI was originally developed to provide a quantitative assessment of the intensity of depression. Because it is designed to reflect the depth of depression, it can monitor changes over time and provide an objective measure for judging improvement and the effectiveness or otherwise of treatment methods.[13] The instrument remains widely used in research; in 1998, it had been used in over 2000 empirical studies.[14] It has been translated into multiple European languages as well as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Persian,[15] and Xhosa.[16]

Limitations

The BDI has the same limitations as other self-report inventories, in that scores can be easily exaggerated or minimized by the person completing them. Like all questionnaires, the way the instrument is administered can have an effect on the final score. If a patient is asked to fill out the form in front of other people in a clinical environment, for instance, social expectations have been shown to elicit a different response compared to administration via a postal survey.[17]

In participants with concomitant physical illness the BDI's reliance on physical symptoms such as fatigue may artificially inflate scores due to symptoms of the illness, rather than of depression.[18] In an effort to deal with this concern Beck and his colleagues developed the "Beck Depression Inventory for Primary Care" (BDI-PC), a short screening scale consisting of seven items from the BDI-II considered to be independent of physical function. Unlike the standard BDI, the BDI-PC produces only a binary outcome of "not depressed" or "depressed" for patients above a cutoff score of 4.[19]

Although designed as a screening device rather than a diagnostic tool, the BDI is sometimes used by health care providers to reach a quick diagnosis.[20]

The BDI is copyrighted; a fee must be paid for each copy used. There is no evidence that the BDI-II is more valid or reliable than other depression scales,[21] and public domain scales such as the Patient Health Questionnaire – Nine Item (PHQ-9) have been studied as a useful tool.[22]

See also

Notes
  1. Beck AT (1972). Depression: Causes and Treatment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1032-8.
  2. Kovacs, M. (1992). Children's Depression Inventory. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.
  3. McGraw Hill Publishing Company "Test developer profile: Aaron T. Beck". Retrieved on 2009-02-24 Aaron T. Beck, M.D. at the Wayback Machine (archived 2009-03-17)
  4. Allen JP (2003). "An Overview of Beck's Cognitive Theory of Depression in Contemporary Literature". Archived from the original on 2009-02-14. Retrieved 2004-02-24.
  5. Brown GP, Hammen CL, Craske MG, Wickens TD (August 1995). "Dimensions of dysfunctional attitudes as vulnerabilities to depressive symptoms". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 104 (3): 431–5. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.104.3.431. PMID 7673566. Retrieved 2008-10-30.
  6. Beck AT, Ward CH, Mendelson M, Mock J, Erbaugh J (June 1961). "An inventory for measuring depression". Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 4 (6): 561–71. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004. PMID 13688369.
  7. Beck AT, Steer RA, Garbin MG J (1988). "Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory Twenty-five years of evaluation". Clin. Psychol. Rev. 8: 77–100. doi:10.1016/0272-7358(88)90050-5.
  8. Moran PW, Lambert MJ (1983). "A review of current assessment tools for monitoring changes in depression". In Lambert MS, Christensen ER, DeJulio S (eds.). The Assessment of Psychotherapy Outcomes. New York: Wiley.
  9. Beck AT, Steer RA, Ball R, Ranieri W (December 1996). "Comparison of Beck Depression Inventories -IA and -II in psychiatric outpatients". Journal of Personality Assessment. 67 (3): 588–97. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa6703_13. PMID 8991972. Archived from the original on 2012-10-29. Retrieved 2008-10-30.
  10. Ambrosini PJ, Metz C, Bianchi MD, Rabinovich H, Undie A (January 1991). "Concurrent validity and psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory in outpatient adolescents". Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 30 (1): 51–7. doi:10.1097/00004583-199101000-00008. PMID 2005064. Archived from the original on 2012-10-29. Retrieved 2008-10-30.
  11. "Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II)". Archived from the original on 2018-12-04. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
  12. Beck AT, Steer RA and Brown GK (1996) "Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II". San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation
  13. Beck AT, Ward C, Mendelson M (1961). "Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)". Arch Gen Psychiatry. 4 (6): 561–571. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004. PMID 13688369.
  14. Richter, P; J Werner; A Heerlein; A Kraus; H Sauer (1998). "On the validity of the Beck Depression Inventory. A review". Psychopathology. 31 (3): 160–8. doi:10.1159/000066239. ISSN 0254-4962. PMID 9636945. S2CID 23969063.
  15. "Literature available on Psychiatric Assessment Instruments translated in non-English languages: TBDI Section". Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit. December 2005. Archived from the original on 2008-07-19. Retrieved 2009-02-24.
  16. Steele GI (October 2006). "The development and validation of the Xhosa translations of the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Beck Hopelessness Scale". biblioteca universia. Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2009-02-24.
  17. Bowling A (September 2005). "Mode of questionnaire administration can have serious effects on data quality". Journal of Public Health. 27 (3): 281–91. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdi031. PMID 15870099.
  18. Moore MJ, Moore PB, Shaw PJ (October 1998). "Mood disturbances in motor neurone disease". Journal of the Neurological Sciences. 160 Suppl 1: S53–6. doi:10.1016/S0022-510X(98)00203-2. PMID 9851650. S2CID 25793509.
  19. Steer RA, Cavalieri TA, Leonard DM, Beck AT (1999). "Use of the Beck Depression Inventory for Primary Care to screen for major depression disorders". General Hospital Psychiatry. 21 (2): 106–11. doi:10.1016/S0163-8343(98)00070-X. PMID 10228890.
  20. Hersen M, Turner SM, Beidel DC (2007). Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 301–302. ISBN 978-0-471-74584-6.
  21. Zimmerman M. Using scales to monitor symptoms and treatment of depression (measurement based care). In UpToDate, Rose, BD (Ed), UpToDate, Waltham, MA, 2011.
  22. Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB (September 2001). "The PHQ-9: Validity of a Brief Depression Severity Measure". J Gen Intern Med. 16 (9): 606–13. doi:10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x. PMC 1495268. PMID 11556941.

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