Past Issues

Objectives:The purpose of the present study was to analyze the factor struc-ture and reliability of the 11-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Stud-ies Depression Scale (CES-D) among community dwelling older adults in Taiwan. Methods:This study was to conduct an exploratory factor and reliability analysis of the data using CES-D 11-item version of that study project. Data for this study were drawn from 1,308 elder persons who were under a study project entitled “The Social Survey on Attitude Towards Needs, Provision of Services, Preferences for Late Life: Perspectives from Different Generations” in Survey Research Data Ar-chive (SRDA) 2007. Results:The result of two exploratory factor analyses showed that a four-factor model was the best structure. The four factors--Depressed Affect (eigenvalue 3.42 and 23.50% of variance), Positive Affect (eigenvalue 1.21 and 16.08% of variance), Somatic Problems (eigenvalue 0.74 and 12.58% of vari-ance), and Sleep Disturbance (eigenvalue 0.52 and 10.98% of variance)-- had ac-cumulated variance of 63.13%. Conclusion:The results of this study suggest that a four-factor model of general depression is the best structure for the 11-item version of CES-D, among community dwelling older adults in Taiwan. But it needs to refine and validate CES-D in the context of local culture for future research and clinical implication.