The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale with a young adolescent population: A confirmatory factor analysis

The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D) was developed to assess the population prevalence of depression. The CES-D was developed and normed on an adult population. Since the CES-D's publication, various studies have both used and psychometrically assessed the scale for older adolescent populations. However, we found no report of the CES-D's psychometric properties for young adolescent populations. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of the CES-D with a large, young adolescent population that also included members of a number of different ethnic groups. We tested 12 models previously supported by factor analyses. Radloff's (1977) four-factor model (Depressed Affect, Positive Affect, Somatic Complaints, Interpersonal) was supported if the item "I felt that everything I did was an effort" is deleted, as this item has characteristics that are quite problematic in both the present data and in past data from adolescents. Second-order and hierarchical factor analyses fit the data well but suggested that Depressed Affect could not be distinguished from the General Depression factor. Given the high correlations among the four first-order factors, the standard scoring of the CES-D for one total score is justified.