Objective:

To determine the appearance validity of the PHQ-9 for the detection of depressive symptoms among health sciences students at the University of Cartagena, Colombia

Materials and Methods:

A cross sectional study that assesses the psychometric properties of the PHQ-9 scale. It was consulted to 10 experts in the areas of research and clinical diagnosis. To determine the appearance validity, they were used the relevance and adequacy. Relevance determination was performed through rate content. To assess the adequacy, a panel discussion was conducted.

Results:

The relevance found that all the items of the PHQ-9 scale were essential for depressive symptoms screening in this population. With a CVR equal to 1 in the nine items evaluated (CVR Essential ≥ 0.62, p = 0.05). For adequacy, idiomatic settings of all items were made taking into account the relevant comments from experts and the panel discussion conclusions.

Conclusions:

the Phq-9 scale has an adequate appearance validity, it is necessary to evaluate the psychometric properties of this version of the scale in our population.

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