Comparison of the Chinese Depression Inventory and the Chinese version of the Beck Depression Inventory.

Using a sample of 329 currently depressed patients from 24 hospitals across China, the Chinese Depression Inventory (CDI) was developed based on its own culture and verbal expression styles. The reliability and validity of CDI were much better for these patients than the Chinese version of the Beck Depression Inventory (CBDI). This study demonstrated that the CDI is both a culturally sensitive and cross-culturally useful self-report scale for measuring the severity of depression in Chinese. The authors suggest that such a rating scale would eliminate serious cultural biases, control for the severity of illness among different ethnic groups and thereby make cross-cultural studies more valid.