A comparison of the major depression inventory (MDI) and the beck depression inventory (BDI) in severely depressed patients

Anastasios Konstantinidis, Klaus Martiny, Per Bech, Siegfried Kasper

    25 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Background. We set out to examine the psychometric properties of the MDI in comparison to the BDI in a mixed group of patients with primary depression. Methods. At the Department of Biological Psychiatry in Vienna currently depressed inpatients with either a depressive or a schizo-affective disorder filled out both MDI and BDI on day of admission and at a time-point two weeks later during their treatment. Furthermore the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D) was administered by the treating clinician at both time-points. Results. In total, 51 patients were included in the study. The non-parametric item response analysis was preferred to the classical Cronbach coefficient αα as the latter is influenced by the number of items in a questionnaire. MDI obtained a Mokken analysis coefficient above 0.40, indicating unidimensionality. To determine external validity severely depressed patients with psychotic symptoms (N = 10) were compared to the remaining non-psychotic depressed patients (N = 41). Although BDI and MDI showed a lower score for psychotic than for non-psychotic inpatients, the standard deviations for both were greater for psychotic inpatients. On the intercorrelations between the different scales, MDI showed for all coefficients values above 0.70. On the other hand BDI and MDI both showed the same degree of linear relationship as the usual versions of HAM-D. Conclusion. Our results demonstrate that the MDI had the highest coefficients values and was sufficient as a measure for depressive disorders in psychiatric patients.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalInternational Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice
    Volume15
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)56-61
    Number of pages6
    ISSN1365-1501
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2011

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