Many of the most frequently used depression instruments were created more than 40 years ago, without the benefit of rigorous psychometric development and testing. Most of these measures were designed to provide only a single overall index of depression, so that they do not yield reliable and valid subscales assessing specific types of depressive symptoms. Furthermore, progress in this area is hampered by our limited understanding of the internal structure of depressive symptoms. The proposed work will result in a multi-dimensional measure of depression that will include a wide range of depression symptoms, as well as symptoms of related anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and panic disorder. The scales comprising the final measure will be suitable for use in clinical outcome research as well as other studies of the etiology and consequences of depression. The process will begin with the creation of a comprehensive item pool; our review of the literature indicates that this pool should multiple groups of items assessing prominent symptoms of depression, another group of items measuring positive emotionality, and several clusters of anxiety-related items. These items will undergo extensive testing with diverse samples of both clinical and non-clinical adult populations. The goal of the initial phases of the proposed research is to determine the factor structure of depression and related symptoms so that appropriate subscales are modeled in the final measure. Further studies will assess the construct validity of the resulting factor-based measures through analyses of their (a) sensitivity to change and (b) convergence with other self-report and clinician-rated measures of depression and anxiety. The next group of proposed studies will use advanced psychometric methods (including confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory) to assess the suitability of the measure--at both the subscale and item level--in different populations (e.g., adolescents, pregnant and postpartum women, and older adults) and to modify the instrument as necessary for use with these populations.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH068472-04
Application #
7059855
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZMH1-DEA-F (01))
Program Officer
Chavez, Mark
Project Start
2003-07-01
Project End
2008-04-30
Budget Start
2006-05-01
Budget End
2007-04-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$331,767
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Iowa
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
062761671
City
Iowa City
State
IA
Country
United States
Zip Code
52242
Watson, David; Stasik, Sara M; Chmielewski, Michael et al. (2015) Development and Validation of the Temperament and Affectivity Inventory (TAI). Assessment 22:540-60
Chmielewski, Michael; Clark, Lee Anna; Bagby, R Michael et al. (2015) Method matters: Understanding diagnostic reliability in DSM-IV and DSM-5. J Abnorm Psychol 124:764-9
Williamson, J Austin; O'Hara, Michael W; Stuart, Scott et al. (2015) Assessment of postpartum depressive symptoms: the importance of somatic symptoms and irritability. Assessment 22:309-18
Watson, David; Naragon-Gainey, Kristin (2014) Personality, Emotions, and the Emotional Disorders. Clin Psychol Sci 2:422-442
Watson, David; Clark, Lee Anna; Chmielewski, Michael et al. (2013) The value of suppressor effects in explicating the construct validity of symptom measures. Psychol Assess 25:929-941
Stasik, Sara M; Naragon-Gainey, Kristin; Chmielewski, Michael et al. (2012) Core OCD symptoms: exploration of specificity and relations with psychopathology. J Anxiety Disord 26:859-70
Watson, David; O'Hara, Michael W; Naragon-Gainey, Kristin et al. (2012) Development and validation of new anxiety and bipolar symptom scales for an expanded version of the IDAS (the IDAS-II). Assessment 19:399-420
McDade-Montez, Elizabeth A; Watson, David (2011) Examining the potential influence of diabetes on depression and anxiety symptoms via multiple sample confirmatory factor analysis. Ann Behav Med 42:341-51
Naragon-Gainey, K; Watson, D (2011) The anxiety disorders and suicidal ideation: accounting for co-morbidity via underlying personality traits. Psychol Med 41:1437-47
Koffel, Erin; Watson, David (2010) Development and initial validation of the Iowa Sleep Disturbances Inventory. Assessment 17:423-39

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