Validation of the Occupational Depression Inventory in Brazil: A study of 1612 civil servants

Renzo Bianchi; Danísio Calixto Cavalcante; Cristina Queirós; Blezi Daiana Menezes Santos; Jay Verkuilen; Irvin Sam Schonfeld

doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111194

Validation of the Occupational Depression Inventory in Brazil: A study of 1612 civil servants

J Psychosom Res. 2023 Apr:167:111194. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111194. Epub 2023 Feb 15.

Authors

Renzo Bianchi¹, Danísio Calixto Cavalcante², Cristina Queirós³, Blezi Daiana Menezes Santos⁴, Jay Verkuilen⁵, Irvin Sam Schonfeld⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. Electronic address: renzo.bianchi@ntnu.no.
² Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; National Institute of Social Security, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
³ Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
⁴ Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
⁵ The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA.
⁶ Department of Psychology, The City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA.

PMID: 36801658
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111194

Abstract

Objective: The Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) assesses work-attributed depressive symptoms. The ODI has demonstrated robust psychometric and structural properties. To date, the instrument has been validated in English, French, and Spanish. This study examined the psychometric and structural properties of the ODI's Brazilian-Portuguese version.

Methods: The study involved 1612 civil servants employed in Brazil (M_AGE = 44, SD_AGE = 9; 60% female). The study was conducted online across all Brazilian states.

Results: Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) bifactor analysis indicated that the ODI meets the requirements for essential unidimensionality. The general factor accounted for 91% of the common variance extracted. We found measurement invariance to hold across sexes and age groups. Consistent with these findings, the ODI showed strong scalability (H = 0.67). The instrument's total score accurately ranked respondents on the latent dimension underlying the measure. Furthermore, the ODI exhibited excellent total-score reliability (e.g., McDonald's ω = 0.93). Occupational depression correlated negatively with work engagement and each of its components (vigor, dedication, and absorption), speaking to the ODI's criterion validity. Finally, the ODI helped clarify the issue of burnout-depression overlap. Relying on ESEM confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we found burnout's components to correlate more strongly with occupational depression than with each other. Using a higher-order ESEM-within-CFA framework, we found a correlation of 0.95 between burnout and occupational depression.

Conclusion: The ODI displays robust psychometric and structural properties within the Brazilian context. The ODI constitutes a valuable resource for occupational health specialists and may help advance research on job-related distress.

Keywords: Burnout Assessment Tool; Factor analysis; Job-related distress; Measurement invariance; Mokken scale analysis; Occupational health.

MeSH terms

Adult
Brazil
Burnout, Professional*
Child
Depression* / diagnosis
Ethnicity
Female
Humans
Male
Psychometrics / methods
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires