Self Reported Depressive Symptomatology in Adolescents: A Psychometric Study

This study attempts to explore cultural-specific manifestation and expression of depressive symptomatology in adolescents. 40 school children referred by their teachers to the school counsellors were interviewed to explore the expression of depressive symptomatology. A list of 32 elicited items was given to 10 school counselors for empirical validation. All those items receiving 90% agreement from the experts were retained. A final list of 27 items converted into a self report measure (Depressive Symptomatology Scale, DSS) was piloted on 30 children. In the final phase, a 385 participants selected through stratified sampling were given the DSS, the Self-Concept Scale (Perveen, Saleem, & Mahmood, 2011), and the Child Depression Inventory (1992) for concurrent validity and a demographic performa. Principal Component Factor analysis yielded a four factor solution; Sadness, Indecisiveness, Irritability and Psychosomatic symptoms. The DSS was found to have high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent and discriminant validity. Results are discussed in terms of gender differences, school counseling and cultural differences.