A Reliability and Validity Study of Geriatric Depression Scale

Jung, In Kwa; Kwak, Dong Il; Shin, Dong Kyun; Lee, Min Soo; Lee, Hyeon Soo; Kim, Jin Young

Abstract

OBJECTS: The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of Geriatric Depression Scale(GDS).
METHODS
GDS, BDI, SDS, MMPI-D, K-CES-D were administered to 81 depressed elderlies and 75 nondepressed elderlies. Those who obtained the 'definite impairment' score in MMSE-K were excluded in the final analyses.
RESULTS
The values of Cronbach's alpha and test-retest correlation coefficient were 0.88 and 0.66(p< .001) respectively, The GDS was highly correlated with BDI(r= .72), SDS(r= .78), K-CES-D(r= .75), and MMPI-D(r= .65). The result of the factor analysis showed that GDS had seven factors. They could be labeled as core depressive feature(factor 1), loss of interest/pleasure(factor 2), feeling of unhappiness(factor 3), agitation(factor 4), cognitive inefficiency (factor 5), social withdrawal tendency(factor 6), and lack of motivation(factor 7), which represent important characteristics (emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects) of depression in the elderly. The total percent of variance of 7 factors was 53.4%. finally, the result of discrimination analysis showed that the hit ratio of GDS was 64%.
CONCLUSION
Although GDS had the reasonable reliability and validity, it seemed to have some limitations in relation to absolute discrimination power. It is necessary to investigate the cultural differences in geriatric depressive symptoms and to develope a new depression scale for elderly people with consideration of the cultural differences.