Can Gender and Age Impact on Response Pattern of Depressive Symptoms Among College Students? A Differential Item Functioning Analysis

Abstract

Background: Self-reported depressive complaints among college students might indicate different degrees of severity of depressive states. Through the framework of item response theory, we aim to describe the pattern of responses to items of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), in terms of endorsement probability and discrimination along the continuum of depression. Potential differential item functioning of the scale items of the BDI-II is investigated, by gender and age, to compare across sub-groups of students. Methods: The 21-item BDI-II was cross-sectionally administered to a representative sample of 12,677 Brazilian college students. Reliability was evaluated based on Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Severity ( b i ) and discrimination ( a ) parameters of each BDI-II items were calculated through the graded response model. The influence of gender and age were tested for differential item functioning (DIF) within the item response theory-based approach. Results: The BDI-II presented good reliability (α = 0.91). Women and younger students significantly presented a higher likelihood of depression (cut-off > 13) than men and older counterparts. In general, participants endorsed more easily cognitive-somatic items than affective items of the scale. “Guilty feelings,” “suicidal thoughts,” and “loss of interest in sex” were the items that most likely indicated depression severity ( b ≥ 3.60). However, all BDI-II items showed moderate-to-high discrimination ( a ≥ 1.32) for depressive state. While two items were flagged for DIF, “crying” and “loss of interest in sex,” respectively for gender and age, the global weight of these items on the total score was negligible. Conclusions: Although respondents' gender and age might present influence on response pattern of depressive symptoms, the measures of self-reported symptoms have not inflated severity scores. These findings provide further support to the validity of using BDI-II for assessing depression in academic contexts and highlight the value of considering gender- and age-related common symptoms of depression.

Prevalence and its associated factors of depressive symptoms among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…This is consistent with the results of Xu et al on Chinese college students (31.1% for males vs. 28.4% for females) [ 21 ]. However, the gender differences in college students’ psychological problems are still controversial [ 40 ], and need to be further studied based on different cultural backgrounds. A higher level of disposable income was possibly a protective factor against depressive symptoms.…”

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance Across Gender of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Adolescent Psychiatric Patients

“…Osman et al ( 26 ) also noted that only minor differences in factor loadings were observed (but without performing a formal test). Within an item response theory (IRT) context, de Sá et al ( 42 ) analyzed differential item functioning (DIF) in a large Brazilian college student sample, and found DIF in gender for item 10 (crying) and DIF in age for item 21 (loss of interest in sex). However, the age range of the students was somewhat higher (16–30 years) for their young subgroup (the subgroup of older participants was > 30 years of age) than in the sample analyzed in the present study.…”

Are Short-Term Temporal Relationships between Depressive and Anxious Symptoms Moderated by Sex?

“…Rates of generalised anxiety disorder for females are approximately three times that of males (Bandelow & Michaelis, 2015). In line with these findings, females return higher scores on psychometric instruments such as the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) (Beck & Steer, 1993;de Sa Jr. et al, 2019) and Beck Anxiety Inventory-II (BAI-II) (Bardhoshi, Duncan, & Erford, 2016;Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996). Based on these findings, we expected to find our female participants reporting higher levels of both depressive and anxious symptoms.…”