A psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the short-form Cardiac Depression Scale

Objective: To evaluate the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the Short-Form Cardiac Depression Scale (CDS) as a screening tool.

Methods: Measurement performance was tested on 239 Chinese cardiac patients who were asked to complete the Chinese versions of the Short-Form CDS, the CDS, the Beck Depression Inventory, and an overall measure (single item) of mood status.

Results: The Chinese Short-Form CDS demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's α 0. 76). The high correlation coefficients (r = 0.63–0.74, P < 0.01) between the five items and the total scale provide further evidence of internal consistency. There was acceptable concurrent validity with significantly high correlations between the Chinese versions of the Short- Form CDS and the CDS (r = 0.80, P< 0.0001) and the Beck Depression Inventory (r = 0.64, P < 0.0001). Principal components analysis revealed a single dimension extracted from the data set, which resembles that reported by the authors of the original scale.

Conclusion: The Chinese Short-Form CDS appears to be a valid and reliable user-friendly measure for monitoring depressed mood in Chinese-speaking patients with cardiac disease.