Depression and the Beck Depression Inventory: Normative Study of the Czech Version and Comparison with Foreign Data

The thesis is dealing with the topic of depression and measurement instruments, which may contribute to its diagnostics and assessment. Special attention is dedicated to the Beck Depression Inventory, second edition, and the aim of this thesis is to provide normative data acquired from a large sample of healthy adult participants coming from the Czech Republic (N = 450; aged 18 to 96 years). The Beck Depression Inventory, second edition (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) belongs among the most famous and most often used measures of depression severity. A significant relationship was found between the BDI-II total score and gender and education level, but not age. Women tended to score significantly higher than men on average, and a negative correlation between the BDI-II total score and education was found. Therefore, the normative data were analysed and stratified according to these two demographic variables. Tables, presenting means, standard deviations, percentiles and standard scores are provided for the total unstratified sample as well as for demographically defined subgroups. In addition, internal consistency of the Czech version was high (alpha above .80). The item-total correlations, and factorial structure of the instrument were investigated and the results were compared with results..