Development and Validation of Short Form of the Normal Depression Scale for Individual Screening

Background: The purpose of this study is to develop a short form of the normal depression scale for individual use in the school, health, industry, organization, and counseling settings, based on the original normal depression scale (17 items). Methods: To achieve this purpose, we selected five items from the original test and analyzed data using Mplus 7.4 and SPSS 21.0. Results: The normal depression scale-short form consists of 5 items. The reliability of the short form (test-retest reliability) was good. The content validity and internal structure validity (1 factor model) were verified. The cut score between normal and dysfunctional depression was determined to be 18. Conclusions: The normal depression scale-short form for individual screening is verified to have good reliability and validity, so it is expected to be useful to perform quick screening of normal depression in the practical settings.