Psychometric properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire for adolescents.

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Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire for Adolescents Sidney J. Blatt , Carrie E. Schaffer , Susan A. Bers & Donald M. Quinlan Published online: 10 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Sidney J. Blatt , Carrie E. Schaffer , Susan A. Bers & Donald M. Quinlan (1992) Psychometric Properties of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire for Adolescents, Journal of Personality Assessment, 59:1, 82-98, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5901_8 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5901_8

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JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 1992, 59(1), 82-98 Copyright 1992, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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Psychometric Properties of the pressive Experiences Questionnaire for Adolescents Sidney J. Blatt, Carrie E. Schaffer, Susan A. Bers, and Donald M. Quinlan Yale University

Items of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ) were rephrased and simplified to make them appropriate for younger subjects. This adolescent form of the DEQ (DEQ-A) was administered to high school students; a factor analysis revealed three factors that were highly congruent in female and male students and with the three factors of the original DEQ. Internal consistency as well as shortand long-term reliability for each of the 3 DEQ-A factors were at acceptable levels. Each factor correlated highly with its counterpart factor in the original DEQ, especially the Dependency and Self-criticismfactors. Correlations of the DEQ-A factors with other measures of depression essentially replicate relationships found between these measures of depression and the original DEQ for adults. The reliability, internal consistency, and validity of the DEQ-A indicate that it could be useful in studying depressive experiences in younger adolescents.

T h e purpose of this article is t o present a form of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ that would be applicable to younger subjects. T h e DEQ (Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976) was originally developed for older adolescents and adults t o assess experiences commonly associated with depression, but usually not considered symptoms of depression. A series of items were gathered from a review of classic case studies (e.g., Cohen, Baker, Cohen, FrommReichman, & Weigert, 1954) that described the life experiences of clinically depressed individuals including the nature and quality of their interpersonal relationships as well as their feelings about themselves, their activities, and their interests. These items were selected without any particular theoretical orientation, primarily with the goal of selecting items that described the everyday experiences of depressed individuals. A group of six graduate students and faculty in clinical psychology then reviewed the approximately 150 items


gleaned from the literature and eliminated overlapping items, reducing the final list to 66 items. Direction of items were varied to avoid response set. Items included issues such as ILdistortedor depreciated sense of self and others, dependency, helplessness, guilt, loss of autonomy, and distortions in family relationships" (Blatt et al., 1976, p. 384). Based on an assumption ot a continuity between normality and psychopathology (Blatt, 1974), these 66 items were initially administered to a large group of normal young adults. We assumed that it would be advantageous to study the nature of depressive experiences initially in nonclinical rather than in clinical samples because the severity of clinical disturbances could obscure instead of clarify any inherent organization or structuring of everyday life experiences that might be related to depression. Responses of a large group of college students to these items were subjected to a principal components factor analysis, and three highly stable factors were identified: Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy. Separate factor solutions for men and women were highly congruent, and the internal consistency of the three factors were at acceptable levels (Blatt et al., 1976). The items with high loadings on the first factor, Dependency, involved "concerns about being rejected, hurting or offending people, and having difficulty managing anger and aggression for fear of losing someone." Items with substantial loadings on the second factor, Self-Criticism, involved "feeling guilty, empty, hopeless, unsatisfied, and insecure; having failed to meet expectations and standards; and being unable to assume responsibility," feeltng threatened by change; feeling self-critical, ambivalent about self and others; and tending to assume blame. The third factor, Efficacy, contained items describing "goal-oriented strivings and feelings of personal accomplishment" (Blatt et al., 1976, pp. 384-385). Test-retest reliability of these scales, especially Dependency and Self-Criticism,were at acceptable levels over brief and longer (13-week)ti~me periods and seemed to be relatively unaffected by intervening stressful events such as examinations and grading periods (Zuroff, Moskowitz, Wieglus, Powers, & Franko, 1983). Considerable evidence supports the construct validity of the DEQ Dependency and Self-Criticism scales. Dependency and SellSCriticism have been linked to depressive affect in college populations, both cross-sectionally (Zur~ff 6r Mongrain, 1987) and longitudinally (Zuroff, Igreja, & Mongrain, 1989). Dependency and Self-criticism have been shown to be related in theoretically expected ways to self-concept and self-esteem (Blatt et al., 1976; Zuroff et al., 1983), interpersonal behavior (Blatt, Quinlan, Chevron, McDonald, & Zuroff, 1982; Zuroff & de Lorimier, 1989; Zuroff et al., 19831, descriptions of parents (Blatt, Bers, & Quinlan, 1992; Blatt, Wein, Chevron, & Quinlan, 1979; McCranie & Bass, 1984; Whiffen Gr Sasserville, 1991), dysfunctional attitudes (Mongrain & Zuroff, 1989), sex-role orientation (Chevron, Quinlan, & Blatt, 1978),race and social mobility (Steele, 1978),and features of clinical case records (Blatt et al., 1982).


84

BLATT, SCHAFFER, BERS, QUINLAN

The factor structure of the DEQ has been replicated in several nonclinical samples and has proved to be remarkably stable (Zuroff, Quinlan, & Blatt, 1990). The three factors, however, did not emerge as clearly in clinical samples (e.g., Jerdonek, 1980; Schultz, 1976);but these attempts at replication in clinical groups have not used large enough samples to provide an adequate test of the replicability of the factor structure with patients. In addition, patients, more so than normals, often report high levels of both dependency and self-criticism (Blatt et al., 1982). Thus, it proved valuable to have started the development of the DEQ with nonclinical samples, rather than to have attempted initially to try to identify a factor structure for the DEQ with patients. It is possible that the factor structure and the importance of dependency and self-criticism as two relatively independent dimensions of depression would not have emerged with such clarity if our empirical investigations had begun with clinical samples. Although unrelated to conventional clinical diagnoses (e.g., the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed., rev. [DSM-Ill-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987), the distinction between dependency and selfcriticism was effective within a patient sample in appreciating differences in patients' presenting problems and aspects of their lives (Blatt, 1974; Blatt et al., 1982). Klein, Harding, Taylor, and Dickstein (1988) as well as Riley and McCranie (1990) found little relationship between conventional clinical symptoms of depression and the distinction between dependency and self-criticism. This relative independence of psychological and neurovegative symptoms of depression is consistent with earlier findings (e.g., Blatt et al., 1982). The lack of a relationship between self-report of experiences of depression on the DEQ and clinical diagnoses and clinical symptoms may speak to the limitations of the DEQ as well as DSM-111-R diagnoses and neurovegative symptoms as ways of understanding central dimensions of clinical depression. Although an overall composite score of symptoms seems to relate to measures of dependency and self-criticism (e.g., see Robins, Block, & Peselow, 1989), a focus on specific clinical symptoms (e.g., Klein et al., 1988; Riley & McCranie, 1990)seems to be an ineffectiveway of establishing meaningful differentiations in psychopathology, especially depression (Blatt, 1990, 1991a). In clinical and nonclinical populations, the DEQ Dependency and SelfCriticism factors are both significantly related to standard measures of depression like the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979) and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS; Zung, 1972), but stronger correlations consistently occur with the DEQ Self-criticismscale (Blatt et al., 1982; Klein et al., 1988; Riley & McCranie, 1990). Using a set of criteria developed by Pilkonis (1988) to establish the distinction between sociotropy (dependency) and autonomy (self-criticism), Persons, Miranda, and Perloff (1991) found that patients, as well as normal control subjects, who had high scores on autonomy reported more feelings of failure, self-blame, guilt, and loss of interest in interpersonal relationships. Contrary to their expectations, how-


ADOLESCENT DEPRESSIVE EXPERIENCES

85

ever, they found that dependency in patients and normals did not relate to expressions of concern about personal attractiveness, hopelessness, or crying. Xlein et al. (1988), however, found significantly more crying in patients high on the DEQ Dependency scale. The DEQ Dependency scale also correlates with standard measures of depression (e.g., the BDI and the ZSDS), but to a [ess substantial degree than the DEQ Self-criticism scale. Individuals with a focus on issues of dependency seem less reflective about their psychological experiences and more likely to express their dysphoria in somatic complaints (Blatt et al., 1976) and action (Blatt, 1991b; Blatt & Shichman, 1981). These formulations, clinical observations, and empirical findings about the importance of differentiating a depression focused on issues of self-criticism in contrast to issues of dependency (Blatt, 1974; Blatt et al., 1976; Blatt et al., 1982) are consistent with the formulations of Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1977, 1980) about the vulnerability of both anxiously attached and compulsively self-reliant individuals to depression, of Arieti and Bemporad (1978, 1980) who disringuished between dominant other and dominant goal types of depression, and of Beck (1983) who distinguished between sociotropy and autonomy as prototypes of depression. These theorists from very different theoretical perspectives posit two types of depression, one in which either perceived loss or rejection in social relationships is central and the other in which perceived failure in achievement, guilt, or a lack of control serves as the precipitant of depression (Blatt & Maroudas, in press). Given the extensive conceptual, clinical, and empirical support for the importance of the distinction between these two dimensions in depression and for the DEQ as a method for assessing these dimensions (Blaney & Kutcher, 1991; Blatt, Quinlan, & Chevron, 1990; Schaffer & Blatt, 1990), we sought to develop a form of the DEQ that would be applicable to younger adolescents. W ' e simplified the wording and changed the content of items to make them more directly relevant to the concerns of adolescents. The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the DEQ-A and to test both its compatibility to the original DEQ as well as its differential correlations with criterion measures of depression: The children" form of the Community Epidemiological Survey for Depression (CES-DC; Faulstich, Carey, & Ruggiero, 1986; Radloff, 1977; Weissman, Orvaschel, & Padian, 1980), the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1982,1985;Nelson, Politano, & Finch, 1987), and the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale (SAS; Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983).

METHOD Subjects The DEQ-A was administered along with the CES-DC and several othier personality measures to 320 female and 281 male high school students in ninth

86



to twelfth grade in a suburban New York high school during the school day by trained assistants who met with groups of approximately 20 to 25 students. The DEQ-A was also administered along with the CDI and several collateral measures to 60 male and 82 female ninth-grade students in an inner city high school in an industrial city in Connecticut. In addition, the DEQ-A, the original DEQ, and the SAS were administered to 51 male and 42 female students enrolled in an introductory psychology class at Yale University.

Measures of Depression The CDI. This self-report questionnaire (Kovacs, 1982) for 7- to 17-yearolds, is derived from the BDI (Beck & Beamesderfer, 1974; Beck, Ward, Mendelsohn, Mock, & Einbaugh, 1960). It consists of 27 items, each describing a symptom at three levels of severity-from not a problem to severe. Items in the CDI refer to the 2 weeks immediately preceding completion of the scale. Though the CDI is considered one of the standard measures of depression in adolescence, studies have produced contradictory results about the relationship of the CDI to various criteria of depression, For example, Saylor, Finch, Spirito, and Bennett (I984), and Moretti, Fine, HaIey, and Marriage (1985) indicated significant differences between clinical and nonclinical and depressed and nondepressed subjects on the CDI. Other studies (e.g., Kazdin, 1987; Kazdin, French, Unis, & Esveldt-Dawson, 1983; Mitchell, McCauley, Burke, & Moss, 1988; Saylor et al., 1984; Weissman et al., 1980) indicate that the CDI does not significantly differentiate depression from other disorders in a clinical context (Costello & Angold, 1988). Studies using the CDI in community samples (e.g., Jacobsen, Lahey, & Strauss, 1983; Kaslow, Rehm, & Siegel, 1984; Leon, Kendall, & Garber, 1980; Sacco & Graves, 1985; Saylor et al., 1984; Strauss, Forehand, Frame, & Smith, 1984) generally indicate that children with high CDI scores are unpopular, lonely, and academic underachievers. Generally, however, the results are equivocal about the ability of the CDI to identify depression in community samples, and it is not clear whether the CDI identifies depression specifically or psychopathology in general (Costello & Angold, 1988). Some of this lack of clarity may possibly be a consequence of the fact that depression in children and adolescents, especially boys, may also be expressed in behavioral disorders as well as in mood disorders and d~sthymia(Blatt, 1991b; Blatt & Shichman, 1981). The CES-DC. The adult CES-D (Radloff, 1977) has been used with adolescents and prepubertal children (Schoenbach, Kaplan, Grimson, & Wagner, 1982). More recently, another version of the CESD has been developed, specifically designed for children and adolescents (CES-DC; Weissman et al., 1980).The 20-item CES-DC presents statements to which the child responds on a +point scale ranging from not at all to a lot. Several items are reverse scored


(e.g., "I was happy this weekn) in an attempt to avoid response bias. The CES-DC was originally established with twenty-eight 6- to 17-year-oldchildren from 12 families. There was a correlation of .44 with the CDI, but scores of children receiving- a Research Diagnostic Criteria diagnosis of depression were not different from those of children with no depressive diagnosis (Weissman et al., 1980).Faulstich et al. (1986)used the CES-DC with one hundred forty-eight 8- to 17-year-old children in an inpatient setting, of whom 39 had depress~we disorders. The correlation with the CDI was highly significant (r = .44), but the CES-DC score did not discriminate between depressed and nondepressed children or among specific diagnoses.' Additional analyses by age showed that the correlation with CDI scores was high for adolescents (r = .61) but not for younger children (r = .03; Costello & Angold, 1988).

The SAS. SAS (Beck et al., 1983)consists of two 30-item self-report scales of Sociotropy and Autonomy. Factor analyses suggest that the Sociotropy scale consists of three subscales-Concern About Disapproval, Attachment, and Pleasing Others. The Autonomy scale also consists of three subscales- Achievement, Freedom From Control, and Preference for Solitude. Beck et al. (1983) reported that, in a sample of 378 ~ s ~ c h i a t routpatients, ic internal consistency (coefficient alpha) was .90 for Sociotropy and .83 for Autonomy. Robins (1985) reported coefficient alphas of .90 for Sociotropy and .80 for Autonomy in a sample of 424 undergraduates. Test-retest stability for a 4- to 6-week period was .75 for Sociotropy and .68 for Autonomy (Robins, 1985). Blaney and Kutcher (1991) considered the Sociotropy scale to be interchangeable with the DEQ Dependency scale, but they concluded that the Autonomy scale of the SAS is better viewed as a measure of counterdependence and as a buffer against the adverse effects of negative interpersonal events (see also Robins & Block, 1988).

The DEQ-A. Forty-two of the 66 items of the original DEQ were rephrased and simplified to make them more appropriate for adolescents (Blatt, Schaffer, Bers, & QuinPan, 1989).The direction of three items were changed (#9, #18, and #26) as was the content of one item (#47; "It is not who you are, but what you have accomplished that counts" was changed to "School grades are more important than being a good person"). Most changes, however, involved only subtle changes in phrasing. These items were informally reviewed by a number of adolescents to verify that they were appropriate and clear. Data Analysis The data collected from 251 female and 213 male students in a suburban high school who had fully completed the DEQ-A was subjected to a principal 'The lack of congruence of subjective reports of depression on the CDI and the CES-DC with clinical diagnoses again raises the interesting question about the frequently reported independenc:e of subjective reports of depression and clinical diagnoses and symptoms (e.g., Blatt et al., 1982).


88


components factor analysis.2Because there was approximately an equal number of females and males, we conducted the factor analysis on the entire sample. This factor analysis yielded 16 factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1. The first two factors, Dependency and Self-criticism, accounted for 18.26% and 7.79% of the variance, respectively, and were clearly indicated for inclusion. By scree criteria (i.e., selecting before or after the point at which the change in proportion of accounted for variance stops changing; Cattell, 1966), two or three factors would be included. Beyond the first three factors, none of the additional factors accounted for more than 4% of the variance, and they were composed principally of two items each. For the sake of comparison with the original analysis, the marginal third factor was included. These three derived factors were compared to the items loading highly on the factors of the original DEQ. The stability of the factor structure for the DEQ-A was assessed by contrasting the factor structure obtained for males and females separately. Test-retest reliability of the three DEQ-A factors was also obtained over a 10-day period on 142 inner-city ninth-grade high school students and over a I-year period with 108 students in a suburban high school. Both the DEQ-A and the DEQ were also given to 93 college students for an item-by-item comparison between each of the 43 items altered in the DEQ-A with its counterpart in the DEQ. To determine the validity of the three factors of the DEQ-A, we correlated the three factors with the CES-DC in the 562 high school students in the suburban high school, with the CDI in the sample of 142 ninth-grade students, and with Sociotropy and Autonomy factors of the SAS in the sample of 78 college studenm3

RESULTS Table 1 presents the factor loadings on each of the three factors for each of 66 items of the DEQ-A for males and females combined. As indicated in Table 1, internal consistency is adequate for all three factors. Inspection of the items loading strongly on each factor indicates that their content is very similar to the content of the items primarily associated with each of the factors of the DEQ. 'six hundred one students were given the DEQ-A, and 464 of these students completed all 66 items. Ninety-eight students omitted 1 item, and 39 students omitted 2 or more items. For completeness, only the responses of the 464 fully completed DEQ-A were used in the factor analysis. For examining correlations of the DEQ-A with other measures, however, the scores of the 98 subjects who omitted only 1 item were used, prorating the three DEQ scales so that they were based on 66 items. 3Although 93 subjects in this college sample received both the DEQ and the DEQ-A, because of an error in collating some of the test booklets, only 78 of these 93 subjects received a fully copy of the SAS.

TABLE 1 Principal Components Factor Analysis of the DEQ-A


Items of DEQ-A 1. I set my goals at a very high level. 2. Without support from others who are close to me, I would be helpless. 3. I am usually satisfied with my plans and goals, rather than trying for higher goals. 4. Sometimes I feel very big, and other times I feel very small. 5. When I am close to someone, I never feel jealous when they are with someone else. 6. I really need things that only other people can provide. 7. I often find that I fall short of what I expect of myself. 8. I feel I am always making full use of my abilities. 9. It bothers me that relationships with people change. 10. If I fail to live up to expectations, I feel unworthy. 11. Many times I feel helpless. 12. I seldom worry about being criticized for things I have said or done. 13. There is a big difference between how I am and how I wish I were. 14. I enjoy competing with others. 15. I feel I have many responsibilities that I must meet. 16. At times I feel lonely and sad. 17. Usually I am not satisfied with what I have. 18. I want to live up to what other people expect of me. 19. I become frightened when I feel alone. 20. If I lost a very close friend, it would feel like I lost an important part of myself. 21. People will accept me no matter how many mistakes I make. 22. I have difficulty breaking off a friendship that is making me unhappy. 23. I often think about the danger of losing someone who is close t o me. 24. Other people expect a lot of me. 25. When I am with others, I often put myself down. 26. I am very concerned with how other people react to me. 27. Even if two people are very close, there is still a lot of fighting.

Factor I Dependency

Factor 2 Self-Criticism

Factor 3 Efficacy

TABLE 1 (Continued)


1-

of DEQ-A

I watch carefully for signs of rejection from others. It's important for my family that I succeed. Often, I feel I have disappointed others. If someone makes me angry, I let him (her) know how I feel. I very often go out of my way to please or help people I am close to. I have many inner strengths and abilities. I find it very difficult to say "No" to the requests of friends. I never really feel safe in a close relationship with a parent or a friend. Sometimes I feel extremely good about myself, and other times I feel extremely bad about myself. I often feel frightened when things change. Even if the person who is closest to me were to leave, I could still get along on my own. People always have to work to gain love from others: That is, love has to be earned. I generally watch carefully to see how other people are affected by what I say or do. I often blame myself for things I have done or said. I am a very independent person. I often feel guilty. I think of myself as a very complex person who has "many sides." I worry a lot about upsetting or hurting someone who is close to me. Anger frightens me. School grades are more important than being a good person. I feel good about myself whether I succeed or fail. When I am trying to help someone with their problems, I can easily put my own feelings and problems aside. If someone I cared about became angry with me, I would feel frightened that he or she might leave me. I feel uncomfortable when I am given important responsibilities. After a fight with a friend, I must make up for it as soon as possible.

Factor I Dependency

Factor 2 Self-Criticism

Factor 3 Efficacy

,145 .333 .083 ,146 .333 .565" .011 ,095 .I87

- .O65 .407 2.13 .303 ,242 .469 ,012 ,373 .I66 -.021 .060 .lo7 .I86

- .OO6

- ,204 .044 (Continued)

91


-

TABLE 1(Continued) Factor I Dependency


Items of DEQ-A

Factor 2 Self-criticism

Factor 3 Efficacy

53. I have a difficult time accepting my own weaknesses. 54. It is more important that I enjoy my school work than to have it praised by others. 55. After an argument, I feel very lonely. 56. In my relationships with others, I care a lot about what they can give to me. 57. I rarely think about my family. 58. My feelings toward someone close to me change often. There are times when I feel completely angry and other times when I feel completely loving towards that person. 59. What I do and say has a very strong impact on those around me. 60. I sometimes feel that I am "special." 61. The people in my family are very close to each other. 62. I am very satisfied with myself and the things I have achieved. 63. I need many things from someone I am close to. 64. I tend to be very critical of myself. 65. Being alone doesn't bother me at all. 66. I very frequently compare myself to the goals and standards I have set for myself.

-

Note. Percentage variance accounted for: Factor 1, 9.94; Factor 2, 5.21; and Factor 3, 4.80. Internal consistency coefficients for Factor 1, .90; Factor 2, .82; and Factor 3, .79. "Five items with highest factor loadings for each of the three DEQ-A factors.

Thus, the labels for the three factors in the DEQ (Dependency, Self-criticism, and Efficacy) can also be appropriately applied to the factors of the DEQ-A, Table 2 presents the coe6cients of congruence for the three factors of the DEQ-A in males and females. These coefficients of congruence indicate that there is a high degree of replication of the three factors in males and females: The coefficients were equal to or greater than .88for each of the three factors. In TABLE 2 Tucker's Coefficients of Congruence for Male m d F e ~ a l eSamples Females (n = 251) Males (n = 213)

Dependency Self-criticism Efficacy

Dependency

Self-criticism

.89 .71 .27

.48 .88 - .02

Efficaq

--

-.01

- .02 .92


92


contrast to findings with the DEQin which the off-diagonalcoefficients between factors are all usually quite low (< .30), the off-diagonal coefficients in this sample of high school students on the DEQ-A are high between Dependency in females and Self-Criticism in males (.71) and, to a lesser degree, between Self-Criticismin females and Dependency in males (.48). These high off-diagonal coefficients indicate that a number of items tend to load on both these factors, suggesting somewhat less differentiation of these dimensions within the adolescent sample. A n item-by-item analysis between each of the items of the DEQ and its revision in the DEQ-A for a sample of college students indicates substantial congruence in 40 of the 43 pairs of items altered for the DEQ-A. Somewhat less agreement was obtained on the one item of which the wording was changed to accommodate adolescent interests (Item #47) and on two items on which the direction of the item was altered (Items #9 and #18). Generally, however, there is impressive agreement between each of the items altered for the DEQ-A and its counterpart on the DEQ. As Table 3 indicates, the substantial item-by-item agreement between the DEQ-A and the DEQ results in highly significant correlations between each factor of the DEQ and its counterpart factor on the DEQ-A in a college sample. There is little overlap between Dependency and Self-Criticism of the DEQ and of the DEQ-A in college students. The Efficacy factor of the DEQ-A, however, does not emerge as clearly as it did in the DEQ. There are substantial correlations between Factor 3 of the DEQ-A and the Dependency and Self-Criticism factors of the DEQ, but the correlations among the three factors of the DEQ-A are between .20 and .3 1. Thus, the three scales of the DEQ-A remain as relatively independent variables in the college sample and in the sample of ninth-grade students from an inner city high school. Short-term test-retest reliability for the DEQ-A measured over a 10-day period with 142 ninth-grade inner city students was stable for the Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy factors (rs = .86, .79, and .65, respectively; Luthar, 1990). Long-term, 1-year, test-retest correlations for each of the three DEQ-A factors -Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy - as measured among a subsample of 40 males and 68 females in the suburban high school, were .63, .56, and .52, respectively. With the sole exception of a modest correlation between

TABLE 3

Correlations Among DEQ-A and DEQ scores in a College Sample

DEQ-A DEQ Dependency Self-criticism Efficacy

Dependency

Self-criticism

Efficw

.90 .20 .04

- .30

.87

- .36 .45

- .21

.72

ADOLESCENT DEPRESSWE EXPERIENCES

93

Factor 1 at Time 1 and Factor 2 1 year later (r = .24, p < .01), the correlations across the different factors over the I-year period were below r = .20 and were nonsignificant.


Validity Estimates As indicated in Table 4, the three factors of the DEQ-A were correlated with the CES-DC (Radloff, 1977) in the sample of suburban female and male high school students. Both Factor 1 and Factor 2 (Dependency and SelfCriticism), have a highly significant correlation (p < .0001) with the CES-DC (r = .50 and .37, respectively). Factor 3 of the DEQ-A, Efficacy, however, was unrelated to this measure of depression. These findings are consistent with reports of significant correlations between CES-D and DEQ Dependency and SelfCriticism in adults (Shapiro, 1988).A similar pattern was obtained with the CDI in the ninth-grade sample of 142 inner city males and females. The CDI correlated .25 (p < .01) and .51 ( p < .0001), with the Dependency and Self-Criticism factor of the DEQ-A, respectively, and its correlation with DEQ-A Efficacy was nonsignificant (Luthar, 1991). The Dependency factor of the DEQ-A also had a highly significant positive correlation (p < .0001) with the Sociotropy scale and a significant (p < .01) negative correlation with the Autonomy scale of the SAS in college students. The Self-criticism factor of the DEQ-A tended to correlate significantly (p < .05) with the Autonomy scale but not with the Sociotropy scale. The Autonomy scale, however, correlated primarily with the Efficacy scale of the DEQ-A (p < .001).

DISCUSSION The data suggest that the DEQ-A closely parallels the DEQ, especially in the articulation of Dependency and Self-criticism as two factors in depression. TABLE 4

Correlations of Factors of Adolescent DEQ With Measures of Depression in Three Independent Samples Dependency Suburban sample (n = 436) CES-DC Inner city sample (n = 142)

CDI College sample (n = 78) SAS Sociotropy Autonomy

*p

< .Ol. **p < .OOl. ***p < .OOOl.

Self-Criticism

50****

.37****

- .03

.25**

.51****

- .03

.83**** -.43**

- .04 .35*

-

Effimy

- .22 .55***


Factor analysis of the DEQ-A yielded three factors that were replicated in both males and females. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for each of these three factors are at acceptable levels. The content of the items predominant in each of the three factors of the DEQ-A was highly congruent with the content of the items predominant on each of the three factors of the DEQ. There are indications, however, that some items tend to load on both the Dependency and Self-Criticism factors more often in the responses of adolescents to the DEQ-A than they did in adults responding to the DEQ. As suggested by Erikson (1959), it appears that issues of dependency and selfcriticism (or relatedness and self-definition) are not as well differentiated in younger adolescents as they are in adults (Blatt & Blass, 1990). Item-by-item comparison of each of the 43 items revised for the DEQ-A with its counterpart from the DEQ indicates a high correlation between the two items of each pair. The close correspondence of each of the item pairs between the DEQ and the DEQ-A are consistent with the highly significant correlations between the three factors of the DEQ-A and those from the DEQ in college students, especially the Dependency and Self-Criticism factors. The third factor of the DEQ, Eficacy, also had substantial correspondence across the two forms of the DEQ, but there was some tendency for Efficacy on DEQ-A to be related to the Dependency and Self-Criticism factors of the DEQ, Efficacy may only become a meaningful construct and a useful scale in later adolescence when there has been some consolidation of an effective identity (Blatt & Blass, 1990; Erikson, 1959, 1968). Generally, however, the correspondence between factors, including an item-by-item comparison, indicate that the DEQ-A is comparable to the DEQ, especially the first two factors, Dependency and Self-Criticism. In regard to construct validity, the correlations of the factors of the DEQ-A with conventional measures of depression (the CES-DC and the CDI) essentially replicate the relationships of the DEQ to standard measures of depression. Factor 2 of the DEQ-A, Self-criticism, correlates strongly (P < .001) with standard measures of depression. Although Factor 1 (Dependency) of the DEQ-A also correlates significantly with measures of depression, these correlations are substantially lower than those with the Self-criticism factor. The correlations of the factors of the DEQ-A with the SAS in 78 college students are similar to prior findings (Blaney & Kutcher, 1991) correlating the SAS with the original DEQ. There is a strong relationship between the DEQ-A Dependency factor and the Sociotropy factor, but the Autonomy factor appears to be more anomalous, Much like the findings with the DEQ (Blaney & Kutcher, 1991), Autonomy correlates significantly with both DEQ-A Dependency and Efficacy, supporting the conclusion reached by Blttney and Kutcher (1991) that the second factor of the SAS is best considered a measure of counterdependence than of autonomy. In summary, the findings of this study indicate support for the reliability and validity of the DEQ-A, especially for the two primary dimensions of depression,


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Dependency and Self-criticism.The DEQ-A produces two highly stable factors that closely parallel the Dependency and Self-criticism scales of the DEQ. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency are high for these two factors, and both factors produce the same pattern of results with criterion measures as do these two factors when they are derived from the DEQ. Thus, the DEQ-.A has psychometric properties indicating that it may be useful in research with younger subjects.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are indebted to Dr. Beth Hart of Pace University for gathering the data on the suburban sample; to Dr. Sunija Luthar for gathering the data on the inner city sample; and to Ann Martin, Dr. Sunija Luthar, and Chris Lohse for their assistance in developing the items for the DEQ-A. The DEQ-A and the scoring manual are available from Sidney J. Blatt, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, 25 Park Street, New Haven, CT

06519.

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Sidney J. Blatt Department of Psychiatry Yale University 25 Park Street New Haven, CT 065 19 Received July 25, 1991 Revised September 16, 1991

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