The aim of the study was to investigate the Baptista Depression Rating Scale for Adults to find evidence of validity based on its internal structure, relationship with other variables through criterion groups, sensitivity, specificity and reliability indexes. A total of 771 individuals (70.2% females; 17 to 69 years old) participated in the study of which 691 were undergraduate students, 40 were depressive patients, and 40 were a non-depressive sub-sample paired with the depressive patients according to gender, age and education. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV(r) Axis I Disorders (SCID-CV), Clinician Version, (to confirm diagnosis of depressive patients) and the Baptista Depression Rating Scale for Adults were used to collect the data. The results indicated a cutoff point of 88.5, identifying 97.5% of true positive cases (sensitivity) and 87.5% of true negative cases (specificity). The factor principal component analysis indicated two factors responsible for 35.3% of total variance explained. The reliability of Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.90 to 0.96 for groups of participants and gender groups. Further studies including greater clinical samples are suggested.
Factor analysis; Depression; Precision; Test reliability
