Children's Depression Inventory
One common mental disorder in the world is depression. Recognizing and treating depression at an early age can assist in a productive adulthood. Children are doors to the future and without knowledge and help some children will suffer with life’s struggles and no understanding or help in developing coping mechanism with or without medication. One assessment widely known is the Children’s Depression Inventory, which assesses the severity and presence of depression in children in hopes of developing a treatment plan. This assessment is commonly place in service at clinics, schools, and by mental health facilitators.
This paper will follow and evaluate two articles discussing Children’s Depression Inventory. The difference in results between children and adults will provide an insight into results. The first article measures and examines the invariance results of the Children’s Depression Inventory, of children with and without depression disorders (Kavocs, 2012). This will provide guidance in search of defining the scale of depression and the comparison to mood disorders. The second article provides a statistical insight into Depression Inventories for children and adults. The assessments will permit professionals the measurement of symptoms and characteristics of depression on a scale (Gomez & Gomez, 2012). This would benefit in understanding the age range of depressive levels in children, adolescents, and adults. The test can be administered in a groups or individual cases lasting 10 to 20 minutes to complete (Gomez & Gomez, 2012). Professionals test children with a “yes” or “no” formality of questions and adults are testing on a five-point scale responding with always, sometimes, seldom, usually, or never. In the final portion of this research paper will explore the validity and reliability of studies (Gomez & Gomez, 2012).
The use of Children's Depression Inventory
Although the Children’s Depression Inventory is not designed to diagnose depression in children it can be second-hand as a tool in identifying negative moods. By recognizing the presence and severity of depression or depressive symptoms steps can be in use to develop a treatment plan. “Half of all current studies focusing on childhood depression use the CDI” (Fristad, Emery, & Beck, 1997, p. 701); however, professionals using the test should also make use of other, multiple assessment, measures. The CDI is just one step in the process of helping children handle depression whether the child has a depressive disorder or not. Children and adolescents suffer academically because of the misdiagnosis of depression; that can carry over to adulthood and present more complications. “For a diagnosis of clinical depression, detailed assessment using multiple measurements such as structured clinical interviews is required” (Fristad, Emery, & Beck, 1997, p. 699), the CDI has been second-hand as an indicator of self-reported distress in children, yet it does not have the sensitivity or the specificity to assist in the diagnosing of depression. The CDI can describe, “a 27-item self-report questionnaire that is used extensively for distinguishing children and adolescents with and without depressive disorders” (Gomez, Vance, & Gomez, 2012, p. 1). For each of the 27 items participants are asked to choose a statement. There are three choices, and it is the one that best describes the participant within the last two-week (Gomez, Vance, & Gomez, 2012). The age range for this test is seven-17 years with an administration time of five-15 minutes (Kavocs, 2012). “The CDI is commonly used in schools, clinics, guidance centers, and medical pediatric settings by psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and mental health professionals” (Kovacs, 2012, para. 1), although there are other ways this test can be given as well. The CDI can be administered in several ways by a parent, a teacher, or even by the child and formats include online, software, and hand scored testing (Kavocs, 2012).
Qualifications for administering and interpreting the Children's Depression Inventory
According to Giannakopoulos, et al. (2009) the Children’s Depression Inventory can be administered by teachers in schools. The test also can be administered by the parents of the child taking the test. When the test was set to a sample of 650 Greek children in 2006, the selection of students is random to have the test administered by their parents at home. The parents were to fill out an information letter, a consent form, and a parental questionnaire giving information about socio-demographic parameters.
Furthermore; according to Giannakopoulos, et al. (2009), it is said that the test results are read by qualified professionals. These professionals can elaborately and educationally determine the internal reliability of the Children’s Depression Inventory. They can also determine test-retest reliability, determination of socioeconomic status, gender, and age effects, and internal reliability. The people reading the interpretation of the test results of the Children’s Depression Inventory are professionals in child psychology. The test results are weigh against other psychiatric test results and observations. They are also compared to observations of the child and records available about that child.
The most efficient setting for a child to take the Children’s Depression Inventory is at school in a group setting. The test can be administered to many children at one time that way. However, this can make interpreting the results a bit more difficult. Because the test results of each child need to be measure up to his or her available records and other psychological test scores, taking on the task of interpreting a mass quantity of tests can cause some of the results to be unseen. A slower process, such as allowing the tests to be administered by the parents at home may be more appropriate and yield more accurate interpretations of the tests.
Valid and invalid results of the Children's Depression Inventory
The testing ages for Child’s Depression Inventory is between seven to 17 years. This test is set to individuals as well as groups of adolescents and teenagers. It is important to have an understanding of who is drawn in with the CDI test. The different populations of participants will influence the validity of the test. Internal and external influential factors to the test are viable.
According to Gomez & Gomez (2012) there were 795 children and adolescents participating for the study. Four hundred and twelve of the participants had not been diagnose with depression, whereas 383 participants had been diagnose with this mental disorder. The test asked the participants to answer questions about his or her parents, home life, and family history. Maternal factors are at times pass down to children and the early detection can assist with diagnosing and creating a plan to help. Parents were to complete a separate interview and test at the same time as his or her child. This test took place over a two- day period. Teachers and researchers used questionnaires and checklists to obtain data. In this study invariance’s could are obvious between individuals with depression and those without. Female participants scored higher on social problems and biological deregulation whereas, males scored higher on externalizing factors. It is hard to showcase the validity of the test because it was administered to only one group of people (Gomez & Gomez, 2012).
The second article uses two forms for testing. The first is in use for children grades 2nd through 9th in this tests individuals are asked to answer a series of yes or no questions. The second test is complete of a series of questions using a five point scale. This test was particular on a test-retest basis and the results reflected a stable and recurring score. Construct validity was not accepted for this test because of the ‘built in’ use of items to measure depression (Battle, 1988).