Cited by 480Psychometric Methodologies and TestingAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesMental Health Research Topics

Establishing a common metric for depressive symptoms: linking the BDI-II, CES-D, and PHQ-9 to PROMIS depression

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Choi, Seung W., Schalet, Benjamin, Cook, Karon F., Cella, David·2014·Psychological Assessment

Abstract

Interest in measuring patient-reported outcomes has increased dramatically in recent decades. This has simultaneously produced numerous assessment options and confusion. In the case of depressive symptoms, there are many commonly used options for measuring the same or a very similar concept. Public and professional reporting of scores can be confused by multiple scale ranges, normative levels, and clinical thresholds. A common reporting metric would have great value and can be achieved when similar instruments are administered to a single sample and then linked to each other to produce cross-walk score tables (e.g., Dorans, 2007; Kolen & Brennan, 2004). Using multiple procedures based on item response theory and equipercentile methods, we produced cross-walk tables linking 3 popular "legacy" depression instruments-the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977; N = 747), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996; N = 748), and the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (Kroenke, Spitzer, & Williams, 2001; N = 1,120)-to the depression metric of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS; Cella et al., 2010). The PROMIS Depression metric is centered on the U.S. general population, matching the marginal distributions of gender, age, race, and education in the 2000 U.S. census (Liu et al., 2010). The linking relationships were evaluated by resampling small subsets and estimating confidence intervals for the differences between the observed and linked PROMIS scores; in addition, PROMIS cutoff scores for depression severity were estimated to correspond with those commonly used with the legacy measures. Our results allow clinicians and researchers to retrofit existing data of 3 popular depression measures to the PROMIS Depression metric and vice versa.

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  • The PROMIS depression scale has strong evidence of construct validity, having been validated against the CES-D, BDI-II, and PHQ-9.

    “There is strong evidence of construct validity for the PROMIS depression scale, which has been validated against the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) (Choi et al., 2014; Pilkonis et al., 2014).”

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  1. Quilty LC Bagby R 2008 The assessment of depressive severity: A review Directions in Psychiatry 28 135 146

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Authors
Choi, S. W., Schalet, B., Cook, K. F., & Cella, D.
Affiliations
Northwestern University (US)
Venue
Psychological Assessment
Published
2014
Volume
26
Issue
2
Pages
513-527
ISSN
  • 1040-3590 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-134X
OpenAlex
W2069518888
Cited by
480
References
74
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 2
FWCI
31.16
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychological Assessment (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Cancer (1RC4CA157236-01)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
Keywords
depressive symptoms, scale linking, Beck Depression Inventory-II, CES-D, PHQ-9, patient-reported outcomes, item response theory, equipercentile linking
MeSH terms
Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychometrics, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reproducibility of Results

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