Beck Depression Inventory

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Title: Beck Depression Inventory

Authors: Aaron T. Beck

Edition: 1961

Instructions

Beck Depression Inventory also known as BDI is a measurement for depression as well as its degree among people and it also looks into the dynamics of how the depression changes and its effects as it changes. The test is available online unlike before when a person had to answer questions either in person or on a paper. Therefore a person goes to the relevant website for example (Beck`s Depression Inventory – Take Beck`s Depression Test Online (psycho-tests.com) and they enroll themselves to the test and immediately take it by answering the questions asked. The most important directive for answering and scoring this test is the honesty with which a person is supposed to answer the questions. This is because the results are solely based on the answers given and if a person wants to get true results, they also have to give true answers to the questions asked. There is also an important part of the information which states that even though the test is important it is mainly for educational and information purposes only and that the help or a real specialist is needed in case there is a concern which needs to be addressed. After answering the questions, the system automatically brings about the results which include, severity od depression (out of 63), cognitive-affective depression symptoms (out of 24) and somatic depression symptoms (out of 39).

Construct

The questionnaire restricts itself to a single construct in that, every question of the 21 questions is the same. They all ask about a person’s health situation now for the last one week. However the answers and different and they are also multiple choice answers whereby a person chooses what they will is the best thing to describe themselves. Therefore, the general issue being measured is degree of depression. However, this comes combined with other constructs like severity of depression, somatic expressive symptoms and cognitive affective depression symptoms. Even though all these are related they measure differently and they are the ones that are combined and interpreted to come up with the rate of depression of a person.

Target population

The major target population of the BDI are the people who go to counsellors with issues of depression management and these people are in need of assistance. This test can help a psychologist to determine the problem with a person and they immediately suggest ways forward and how they are going to help the patient recover from whatever is making them angry. There is no age specification for this kind of test however adolescents and adults are the one mainly involved.

Content

The content of the questionnaire is that the person is supposed to answer one correct answer for all the 4 possible answers given in question. The question remains the same but the answers remain different. All the questions ask a person to “Choose the statement that best describes your health during the past week, including today: “under this question there are many different types of possible answers and therefore a person is supposed to answer one of them.

Psychometric Information

Eun-Ho et al, (2017), standardized or ran a study through which he stated that the tool was good for use since after testing very few abnormalities came around and which are normal. Therefore, from the tests of Eun Ho et al, the tool and the test is totally good and okay to be used by the public.

Ease Of Access

This is one of the best things when it comes to BDI. The time required to answer the questions is around 3 minutes or 5 minutes. This is because the questions are very easy and they can be obtained from the internet whereby there is a clear and simple interpretation of the data in from of bar tables. The tool is also free for a lot of websites and therefore this also makes is easy for the tool to be used as it is available online for free. There is no Manual towards its use as well because it is used to measure the level of depression and very few instructions are available and are needed. Even though it provides information freely the tool requires a person to have a health officer around to help them interpret the results in a more accurate way and look towards a solution.

Summary

The outline is an important part of making changes to out daily lives and it has many strengths as well as weaknesses. One of the strengths is that it helps a person understand themselves better and through this they are likely to look for help if they feel at risk. The other strength is that it can be done multiple times for a person to check if the results they got he first time are true and find help or even refer friends tot eh site for assistance in dealing and managing depression issues.

One of the weaknesses of the tool is that a person might look on their own in private and fail to take the tool serious. This might lead to a person ignoring the results and going on with their life with depression and pretense. Therefore, in this case whereby it cannot help a person it becomes useless since the tool is readily available but not of any use to them. Another weakness of the tool is that it uses repetitive questions in the questionnaire and in fact a person can get bored answering the same questions even though the answers are different.

References

Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Carbin, M. G. (1988). Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evaluation. Clinical psychology review, 8(1), 77-100.

Jackson-Koku, G. (2016). Beck depression inventory. Occupational Medicine, 66(2), 174-175.

Teri, L. (1982). The use of the Beck Depression Inventory with adolescents. Journal of abnormal child psychology, 10(2), 277-284.