Abstract: Abstract: Objectives: The Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a self-rating scale for the measuring depressive symptoms in community settings. It is commonly used as a screening instrument for possible depression. Factor analytic studies have shown that the 20 items of CES-D represent depressed affect, positive affective (reversed items), somatic complaints, and interpersonal concerns (Radloff, 1977). Although it is one of the most commonly used questionnaires in the world, limited studies have focused their attentions on the factor structures of the CES-D among the groups of Chinese elderly adults. The objective of the present study was to examine the factor structures of CES-D in Chinese elderly populations. Method: In a national sample of 4903 elderly adults recruited from major Chinese mainland cities, the CES-D was assessed. Results: a) Confirmatory factor analysis for 20 items of CES-D demonstrated that the four- factor structure identified by Radloff (1977), as well as two three- factor structures suggested by Guarnaccia et al. (1989) and Yen et al. (2000) fit the present data well with RMSEA, SRMR＜0.08，NNFI、GFI and AGFI＞0.90, as well as CFI＞0.95, which indicated that these factor structures could be replicated in Chinese elderly population; b) The correlations between positive affect factor which consist of four reverse scoring items and the other factors were too low to support a common higher order factor, the range of rs was from 0.35 to 0.46, which was smaller than the cut-off value of .50; c) Based on point b, under the conditions that the total score is used to indicate individuals’ levels of depressive symptoms, the four items of positive affect should not be included in the CES-D. In the following analysis, we tried to test the factor structures of CES-D with exclusion of positive factor and found positive affect factor only made limited contributions to the model fits. Combining both original definition and fit indices, Radloff’s factor structure was chosen as the most suitable for the CES-D consist of remaining 16 items RMSEA=.067, SRMR=.033, CFI=.98, NNFI=.98, and GFI=.94; d) Measurement invariance was established across gender for the factor structure of the remaining 16 items. Conclusion: a) Among Chinese elderly adults, the CES–D may provide a better measure of depressive symptoms as a 16-item scale with the positive affect factor left out ; and b) The factor structure identified by Radloff fit the 16-item scale best.

Key words: CES-D, factor structure, elderly adults

摘要： 本研究使用4903名老年人组成的全国样本，系统地检验了流调中心抑郁量表的因素结构。结果表明，Radloff的四因素结构、Guarnaccia等和Yen等的三因素结构对当前样本数据的拟合较好，但信度分析和相关分析显示积极情绪因素降低了总量表信度，并且与其他因素之间不支持共同的高阶因素（抑郁），基于此，在使用量表合成总分的背景下，4个积极情绪项目不适合包含在CES-D量表中。随后，本研究检验了剔除积极情绪项目后量表各因素结构的拟合情况，发现积极情绪因素对量表因素结构的拟合水平贡献不大。结合拟合指数和Radloff对量表的界定，16项目的三因素结构最适合于我国老年人群，并且，这一因素结构在老年人群中具有跨性别的恒等性。

关键词: 流调中心抑郁量表, 因素结构, 老年人