Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine psychometric properties of the Japanese version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) in a sample of undergraduates in Japan (N = 953) . The results indicated that Cronbach's a coefficient was moderately high; the Spearman-Brown correlation coefficient was fairly high as well. Furthermore, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the Beck Depression Inventory-II and both the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale Form-A (DAS-A) were comparable to previous research findings. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a 2-factor model using "somatic-affective" and "cognitive" variables represented the population well. The results of the present psychometric analyses suggest that the Japanese version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II is a reliable instrument and suitable for use in measuring symptoms of depression in a Japanese college-student population. In addition, the distribution along cut-off scores and the statistical data for 21 items of the Japanese version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II showed that the Japanese university students tended to have higher scores than non-universitystudent adults. This result calls into question the practice of interpreting directly from the measured values for university students in the same way as other adults.
