Additional Study of the Youth–Depression Adjective Check List

Srrmmary.-Replicated and extended aspects of determinations of reliability and validity for the State version of the Youth-Depression Adjective Check List. Students from Grades 9 through 12 (64 girls and 41 boys) completed the State version and the Adolescent Activities Checklist on each of 12 consecutive days and completed the Trait version, the Reynoldb Adolescent Depression Scale, the Multiple Mect Adjective Check List-Revised Grade 6, and the Adolescent Activities Checklist at the beginning and the end of the study. Good reliability and validity of the State version were confirmed and extended, and preliminary information on characteristics of the Trait version of the Youth-Depression Adjective Check List also was presented. The State version seems suitable for use in research with adolescents and preadolescents. More srudy of the Trait version is recommended. A previous report (Carey, Lubin, & Brewer, 1992) presented the psychometric characteristics of the Youth-Depression Adjective Check List, a 22-adjective self-report checklist (14 depressive and eight nondepressive) for the measurement of depressive mood in pre-adolescents and adolescents. The chechst consists of adjectives written for a Grade 6 or lower reading level (Dale & O'Rourke, 1981) of the Depression Adjective Check Lists (Lubin, 1994). Findmgs indcated that the State version of the checfist had high internal consistency and split-half reliabhty in both normal and chical samples. As a State measure, the low test-retest reliability was expected and was taken as an indicarion that the measure was sensitive to change. Support for the concurrent, &scriminant, and factorial validity of the Youth-Depression Adjective Check List also was provided. In addition, the checklist was able to differentiate referred adolescent patients from nonreferred adolescents. The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend the study of the psychometric characteristics of the State Youth-Depression Adjective Check List by investigating the use of the chechst as a measure of daily mood and by collecting addtional reliabhty and validity data. Also, prelimi