Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory-H with university students in Bahrain

The Arabic version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) was administered to 200 students enrolled at the University of Bahrain. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques, I obtained reasonable validity and reliability data for the BDI-II. Three oblique factors provided the most parsimonious and meaningful solution for students' responses. Findings of this study generally provide strong support for the psychometric soundness of the BDI-II as a measure of depression in college student populations even in Arabic culture, which differs dramatically from Western culture in both values and taboos.