The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is perhaps the most commonly used screening instrument for depression in the general population. We examined the psychometric properties of a Persian-language version of the second edition of this instrument (BDI-II) [Beck et al., 1996] in an Iranian college-student sample. In a sample of 125 student volunteers from two Iranian universities, we compared mean item scores on the BDI-II-Persian with those on the English-language version administered to North American college students, and assessed internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the BDI-II-Persian and its concurrent validity against a measure of negative automatic thoughts in depression, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire [Hollon and Kendall, 1980]. We also examined the factor structure of the BDI-II-Persian through comparing the fit of various proposed models to the data using confirmatory factor analysis. The BDI-II-Persian had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.87) and acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.74). The instrument correlated strongly with the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. In factor analysis, models with strongly correlated affective-cognitive and somatic-vegetative factors provided a better fit than models with one global factor. These data support the reliability and concurrent validity of the BDI-II-Persian as a measure of depressive symptoms in nonclinical samples.

With minor differences, the pattern of symptoms with various contents in this sample was similar to that in Western settings.

The psychometric properties of the Persian-language version of Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) were studied in a sample of Iranian college students (N = 450). The total and each of the subscales of OCI-R-Persian demonstrated very high internal consistency as well as high test-retest reliability. Convergent and divergent validity of the OCI-R-Persian total scale and subscales were satisfactory. In general, the OCI-R-Persian appears to be a reliable and valid measure of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in this non-clinical sample of Iranian college students.