Evidence of criterion validity for the initial version of the rating scale depressive thoughts

• Grant number: 12/19720-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: January 01, 2013
• End date: December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Fundamentals and Assessments in Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Alberto Moreno
• Grantee: Ricardo Alberto Moreno
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psiquiatria Doutor Antonio Carlos Pacheco e Silva (IPq). Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da USP (HCFMUSP). Secretaria da Saúde (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Fernando dos Santos Fernandes

Abstract

The influence of disfuntional/ irrational beliefs for development of mental disorders can be found in different articles, and consists as a problem that mental health professionals have to deal with, principally, psychotherapists. This way, different psychological tests focused on evaluation this issue have been developed, including some of them translated and adapted to Brazilian context, however, without being specific for the evaluation of mental disorders as depression, which is configured as a major cause of disability worldwide. considering this variables, develop a measure of thoughts of depression becomes a important topic, therefore, this project aims to find evidence of criterion validity for the initial version of the Rating Scale Depressive Thoughts. The compilation of items from this scale was performed based on 11 measures of dysfunctional/ irrational beliefs and cognitive triad proposed by A. T. Beck, resulting in 249 descriptors. After elimination of items contained in dubious or inappropriate for the purpose, the set of descriptors was applied in a psychiatric population (n = 10) and non-psychiatric (n = 20) leaving 103 items. Thus, to check whether the scale measures what it proposes, should be subjected to different validation studies, as analyzing their items with other instruments (founding relationships of convergence, discriminancy and concurrency), content (analysis of judges) and criterion (depressed and nondepressed groups) focus of this work. (AU)