Short versions of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) among widowed older people in Taiwan: Comparing their psychometric properties

Objective To compare the psychometric properties of different short versions of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) among community-dwelling widowed older people. Methods A cross-sectional design was conducted between February 2018 and August 2019 in southern Taiwan (n = 330). The GDS short versions included Hoyl et al's 5-item version, Molloy et al's 5-item version and van Marwijk et al's 4-item version. Results All GDS short versions had satisfactory internal consistency (alpha = 0.83-0.90), with strong item loading embedded in the same construct of depression (0.43-0.72). The activity of daily living (ADL) scores had strong associations with van Marwijk et al's 4-item version (absolute standardised coefficient [|beta|] = 0.15-0.59), Hoyl et al's 5-item version (|beta| = 0.16-0.45) and Molloy et al's 4-item version (|beta| = 0.09-0.40). Conclusions Hoyl et al's 5-item version was found to be more suitable than the other two versions of the GDS to assess the precise construct of depression. Meanwhile, van Marwijk et al's 4-item version can be used when the focus is on ADL performance. However, the conclusion should be interpreted with caution since the results were derived only from a widowed population in Taiwan. More research on this topic among other populations is thus needed to corroborate our conclusion.

Automated summary

The study compared the psychometric properties of different short versions of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) among community-dwelling widowed older people. Results showed that the Hoyl et al's 5-item version was more suitable for assessing the precise construct of depression, while van Marwijk et al's 4-item version can be used to focus on activities of daily living performance. Further research among other populations is needed to confirm these findings.