Psychometric Properties of the Beck Scale for Depression (Beck Depression Inventory BDI-II) - A Study on a Sample of Students in the State of Kuwait Universities

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory BDI-II) the Arabized version of (Gharib, 2000); the study sample consisted of 500 male and female students from the Kuwaiti universities by 250 males and 250 females on whom the BDI II scale was applied twice; the psychometric characteristics such as the predicted and structural validity, internal consistency, and Cronbach's alpha values were extracted. The results showed that the scale has a high degree of consistency and validity in the Kuwaiti environment, alpha values after the items' deletion and the correlation coefficients of males and females became closer, and there are no significant differences in the degree of the overall depression depending on the variable of sex in the Kuwaiti environment. The study recommended the application of the Beck Depression Inventory scale (BDI-II) due to its high psychometric characteristics in addition to the attempt of developing this inventory to fit the older age groups.

Keywords: psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), students of the Kuwaiti universities.