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Assessing measurement invariance of three depression scales between neurologic samples and community samples

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Abstract

Purpose

Measurement invariance is necessary for meaningful group comparisons. The purpose of this study was to test measurement invariance of three patient-reported measures of depressive symptoms between neurologic and community samples.

Methods

The instruments tested included the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (CESD-20), the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and the patient-reported outcome measurement information system depression short form (PROMIS-D-8). Responses from a community sample were compared to responses from samples with two neurologic conditions: multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate successive levels of measurement invariance: (a) configural invariance, i.e., equivalent item factor structure between groups; (b) metric invariance, i.e., equivalent unstandardized factor loadings between groups; and (c) scalar invariance, i.e., equivalent item intercepts between groups.

Results

Results of this study supported metric invariance for the CESD-20, PHQ-9, and PROMIS-D-8 scores between the community sample and the samples with neurologic conditions. The most rigorous form of invariance (i.e., scalar) also holds for the CESD-20 and the PROMIS-D-8.

Conclusions

The current study suggests that depressive symptoms as measured by three different outcome measures have the same meaning across clinical and community samples. Thus, the use of these measures for group comparisons is supported.

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Abbreviations

CESD:

Center for epidemiologic studies depression scale

CFA:

Confirmatory factor analysis

DIF:

Differential item functioning

MG-CFA:

Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis

MS:

Multiple sclerosis

PHQ:

Patient health questionnaire

PROMIS:

Patient-reported outcome measurement information system

SCI:

Spinal cord injury

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Acknowledgments

Research reported in this paper was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) under award number R03HS020700. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the AHRQ.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseon-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, South Korea

    Hyewon Chung

  2. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Box 359612, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Jiseon Kim

  3. Institute of Public Health and Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 633 N St Clair Street, 20th Floor, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Robert L. Askew

  4. Group Health Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA

    Salene M. W. Jones

  5. Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 625 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2700, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Karon F. Cook

  6. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Box 354237, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Dagmar Amtmann

Authors
  1. Hyewon Chung
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  2. Jiseon Kim
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  3. Robert L. Askew
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  4. Salene M. W. Jones
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  5. Karon F. Cook
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  6. Dagmar Amtmann
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Correspondence to Hyewon Chung.

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Chung, H., Kim, J., Askew, R.L. et al. Assessing measurement invariance of three depression scales between neurologic samples and community samples. Qual Life Res 24, 1829–1834 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-015-0927-5

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