Ascertaining late‐life depressive symptoms in Europe: an evaluation of the survey version of the EURO‐D scale in 10 nations. The SHARE project

Abstract

The reported prevalence of late-life depressive symptoms varies widely between studies, a finding that might be attributed to cultural as well as methodological factors. The EURO-D scale was developed to allow valid comparison of prevalence and risk associations between European countries. This study used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Rasch models to assess whether the goal of measurement invariance had been achieved; using EURO-D scale data collected in 10 European countries as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (n = 22,777). The results suggested a two-factor solution (Affective Suffering and Motivation) after Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in 9 of the 10 countries. With CFA, in all countries, the two-factor solution had better overall goodness-of-fit than the one-factor solution. However, only the Affective Suffering subscale was equivalent across countries, while the Motivation subscale was not. The Rasch model indicated that the EURO-D was a hierarchical scale. While the calibration pattern was similar across countries, between countries agreement in item calibrations was stronger for the items loading on the affective suffering than the motivation factor. In conclusion, there is evidence to support the EURO-D as either a uni-dimensional or bi-dimensional scale measure of depressive symptoms in late-life across European countries. The Affective Suffering sub-component had more robust cross-cultural validity than the Motivation sub-component.

Remediating serious flaws in the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire

“…However, the multidimensionality of the NEI VFQ is an inherent feature of the instrument that would be consistently demonstrable across populations. 62 Thus, identification of the flaws in the original instrument and the revisions we propose represent important progress for the use of the NEI VFQ. Nevertheless, our model should be tested in other populations.…”

Co-occurrence of anxiety and depression amongst older adults in low- and middle-income countries: findings from the 10/66 study

“…Participants scoring five or more on the EURO-D scale (Prince et al 1999b), which had been validated and extensively used cross-culturally (Prince et al 1999a(Prince et al , 2004Castro-Costa et al 2008), were described as ' EURO-D depression ' cases. By identifying cases of ' EURO-D depression ' that did not meet ICD-10 depression criteria, we described subthreshold cases of depression.…”

Der Zusammenhang zwischen Migrationsstatus und depressiven Symptomen in der älteren Bevölkerung in Deutschland

“…Depressive Symptome wurden mit der EURO-D-Skala erfasst [25,26], einem validierten Fragebogen zur Selbstbeurteilung depressiver Symptome bei älteren Menschen, der für die EURODEPStudien entwickelt wurde [27]. Mit der EURO-D-Skala wird das Vorliegen der folgenden 12 depressiven Symptome innerhalb des letzten Monats standardisiert erfragt: depressive Stimmung, Hoffnungslosigkeit, Suizidalität, Schuldgefühle, Schlafstörungen, Interesselosigkeit, Irritabilität, Appetitlosigkeit, Ermüdbarkeit, Konzentrationsstörung, Anhedonie und Weinen.…”