Citation

Richey JA, Schmidt NB, Lonigan CJ, Phillips BM, Catanzaro SJ, Laurent J, Gerhardstein RR, Kotov R. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 2009; 50(9): 1147-1155.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02085.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Background: The current study examined the categorical versus continuous nature of child and adolescent depression among three samples of children and adolescents ranging from 5 to 19 years.

Methods: Depression was measured using the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI). Indicators derived from the CDI were based on factor analytic research on the CDI and included indices of: 1) social withdrawal, 2) anhedonia, 3) incompetence/maladjustment and 4) negative self‐esteem.

Results: Taxometric procedures provided convergent support for the existence of a latent taxon across three independent samples. Internal and external consistency tests as well as Monte Carlo simulations supported the validity of the results.

Conclusions: Multiple nonredundant procedures and samples were all consistently indicative of taxonicity in child depression.