Background: The Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) is one of the few well-established available measures designed to assess childhood depression. The objective of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties and explore the differential item functioning (DIF) of the SMFQ in a community sample of Spanish children. Gender and age differences in SMFQ scores were also analyzed.
Method: The sample included 824 students aged 8-12 years (Mage = 9.64, SD = 1.2) recruited from four public and private schools in urban areas in the southeast of Spain.
Results: Findings from factor analysis and Polytomous Rasch analysis supported a unidimensional interpretation of the SMFQ, thereby replicating findings across cultures and languages. The SMFQ had good reliability, and test-retest analysis indicated fair to good temporal stability. Evidence of construct validity was provided by a path diagram of the SMFQ and SDQ subscales. No age or gender differences in the SMFQ scores were observed. However, two items (3 and 11) exhibited gender-related DIF.
Conclusions: The use of SMFQ sum-scores as a continuous measure of the severity of depressive symptoms can be supported. The measure shows promise as brief, reliable, valid instrument for the assessment of depressive symptoms in Spanish children.