The Baron Depression Screener for Athletes (BDSA) is a brief, valid, and reliable athlete- specific assessment tool developed in the US to assess depressive symptoms in elite athletes. We examined the applicability and reliability of a Japanese version of the BDSA (BDSA-J) in a Japanese context, and further examined the construct validity of the BDSA-J. Web-based anonymous self-report data of 235 currently competing Japanese professional male rugby players (25-29 years = 123 [52.3%]) was analyzed. A two-stage process was conducted to validate the factor structure of the BDSA-J using exploratory factor analysis in a randomly partitioned calibration sample, and confirmatory factor analysis in a separate validation sample. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess internal consistency. Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficients were calculated to examine convergent validity with the Kessler-6. We identified a one-factor structure for BDSA-J. Confirmatory factor analysis supported this one-factor model, revealing good model fit indices. The standardized path coefficients for each of the items were β = 0.52 to 0.79 (p < 0.001). A Cronbach's alpha of 0.71 was obtained for the BDSA-J. BDSA-J showed significant positive correlations with the Kessler-6. The BDSA-J is an appropriate and psychometrically robust measure for identifying depressive symptoms in Japanese male rugby players.
Keywords: anxiety; athlete; depression; mental health; screening.