Beck's Theory Of Depression

Beck’s work on defining the symptom categories of depression not only has improved the general understanding of the disorder but also has led to the enhancement of psychiatric instruments capable of detecting such ailment. The conceptualization of the symptom categories (affective, behavioural, cognitive distortions, etc.) has been incorporated into a psychometric instrument called ‘Beck’s depression inventory’. Precisely that is one of the most recognised self-assessment tests suitable for identifying depression and its severity (Cohen, 2008). This self-report scale is developed through observations of attitudes and symptoms manifested by depressed and non-depressed psychiatric patients. Hence, this makes the test applicable to both a psychiatric

The researchers hypothesised that those changes may arise from the therapeutic interventions hospitalised participants undergo. On the contrary the psychometric stability of BDI proved useful for non-hospitalised individuals and concluded that the test scores are fairly stable over time. Consequently, to solve the arising issue with test stability, Beck employed two indirect methods for testing the stability of the inventory. By using a test/re-test design in addition to clinical estimates, it was noted that changes in test scores reflected clinician’s ratings. A consistent relationship was present between the subject’s self report and the clinician’s perception (Beck and Beamesderfer, 1974). A more vast research on BDI stability rate is a meta-analytical review presented by Beck et al (1988) where researchers analysed 10 studies both of psychiatric and non-psychiatric population where the time intervals of pre- and post-test administration were measured. Although this analysis demonstrates that there is slightly less stability of test scores from psychiatric patients, Beck firmly concluded that the overall stability of BDI is substantial for a week-long period for both types of tested

The validity of psychometric tests is determined within the range of construct validity meaning whether a test is measuring a construct it is supposed to be measuring. Accordingly, Schotte et al (1997) presents a study with 338 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder according to the DSM-III. The paper determined 2- and 3-factorial structures of BDI. The two –factorial structure could be summerised as one factor representing cognitive/psychological dimension and a second factor elaborating on somatic/vegetative aspect. Consequently a three factorial structure emerges where the factors are respectively ‘Anhedonia/Inhibition’ which measures mood, somatic inhibition, etc; the second factor being ‘Negative self concept’-pessimism, self-perception, etc. and the last factor- Somatic complaints. The second factorial model of BDI is in strong correspondence with a research by Steer et al. (1987a) who also indentified 3 factorial components of the instrument. Affective and performing difficulties, self-denigration and physiological disturbances present the structure presented in this study. The data which is the experiment based is drawn from 300 outpatients diagnosed with Major depressive disorder – a similar sample to the afore presented