Objective: To assess the internal consistency, as well as the construct, concurrent and external consistency of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-R) in Mexican adolescents.
Material and methods: The data are from two samples of middle-school students from Mexico City. The questionnaire included the CES-D-R and other scales for suicide problems, peer and family violence, and drug use.
Results: The sample included 1,549 students (mean age 14 years, SD=1.2). The CES-D-R showed a six-factor structure (explained variance, 55%) with an excellent internal consistency (a=0.93), a significant discriminative power for opposite scores (z=-3.695, p<0.001), and a positive significant correlation with the Roberts Suicidal Ideation Scale (r=0.685, p<0.001).
Conclusions: The CES-D-R has excellent psychometric characteristics for Mexican adolescents and therefore is deemed as an adequate tool for the assessment of depressive symptoms in large samples to detect mental health needs and design preventive interventions.