Três estudos usando a Escala centiMax de Borg® (Escala CR de Borg®, CR 100, cM) para o escalonamento de sintomas depressivos

Abstract

Thinking about the millions of people who are affected worldwide by depressive disorders (322 million, more than 11 million in Brazil and almost 450.000 in Sweden), we tried to create an instrument to assess depression more effectively. In general, depressive disorders are characterized by sadness, loss of interest/pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-esteem, changes in sleep and appetite, tiredness, and low concentration. In addition to the diagnostic criteria, several instruments evaluate depressive disorders. We used the Beck Depression Inventory to validate the Borg CR100 Scale ® for scaling depressive symptoms. The Borg Scales ® were developed in the 60's for the evaluation of perceived exertion. The CR100 is a scale from 0 to 100, with verbal categories placed in agreement with the numerical scale so as to obtain ratio data. This type of scale has several advantages, such as allowing comparison between and within subjects and groups, creating symptoms profile, analyzing individual symptoms and the intensity ratio between them. This thesis consists of three papers using the CR100. Study #1 investigated the properties of CR100 compared to BDI. Fifty Swedish students of Psychology answered an online questionnaire and the results pointed a high correlation between the two scales (r = 0.754, p <0.001), demonstrating that the Borg Scale evaluates depression as well as the BDI, providing more results though. The symptom profile generated was much more detailed than the BDI, in addition, the data was more accurate and not that sensitive to mathematical transformations. Study #2 looked after the validation of CR100 for Brazilian Portuguese and, like #1, the application in 50 Brazilian students. The results also pointed to the high correlation between the scales (r = 0.824, p <0.001) with all characteristics preserved in both nationalities. The first reliability analysis revealed a high alpha value (between 0.952 and 0.947) and R 2 (between 0.778 and 0.976), higher than the BDI. The aim of Study #3 was to investigate the psychometric properties of CR100 in depressive (N = 25) and healthy participants (N = 25), and to find cutoff points for light, medium and severe depression. The reliability analysis of the Scale revealed an alpha of 0.954 and by running a factorial reduction, Data Analysis..