A longitudinal examination of the measurement properties and predictive utility of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale among North American Indigenous adolescents.

Depressive symptoms have been linked to negative psychosocial outcomes among Indigenous populations (i.e., Native Americans and Canadian First Nations people; e.g., LaFromboise, Medoff, Lee, & Harris, 2007; Walls, Chapple, & Johnson, 2007). For both clinical and empirical reasons, accurate assessment of depressive symptoms among this population is of the utmost importance. This is especially the case for adolescents, who experience rapid developmental (i.e., physical and psychological) and social (e.g., expanding social network) changes that may increase their susceptibility to depression (Erikson, 1968). There has been disagreement, however, regarding how to best assess depressive symptoms among Indigenous youths (Thrane, Whitbeck, Hoyt, & Shelley, 2004), and there is a lack of evidence regarding the utility of depressive symptoms measures in predicting major depressive disorders (MDDs) among this population. Furthermore, there is no evidence that measures of depressive symptoms function similarly (i.e., show measurement equivalence) among Indigenous youths as they progress through adolescence. The present study addresses these issues by examining (a) the factor structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), (b) the longitudinal measurement properties (i.e., configural, metric, and scalar equivalence) of the CES-D from early to late adolescence, and (c) the utility of the CES-D for concurrently and prospectively predicting diagnoses of MDD among a sample of Indigenous youths who share the same tribal affiliation.1