Development and Validation of Redeemer’s University Depression Scale (RUDS)

Despite the high prevalence reported in the literature, there is a paucity of indigenous diagnostic tools to assess depression severities among the Nigerian population.

This study aimed to develop and validate a depression scale entitled Redeemer’s University Depression Scale (RUDS).

This research had four stages. The first stage involved the initial generation of 32 items based on a literature search. In the second stage, the items were reduced to 21 using content validity/expert assessments. In the third stage, the 21-item RUDS was administered to 86 University undergraduates and refined through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Also, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (BTS) measured the factorability. At the fourth stage, 456 undergraduates responded to the 19-item RUDS, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12).

The observed KMO measure was .88, and a significant sphericity test was observed (χ2 = 1133.647, df = 210, P = 0.000). The principal component analysis (PCA) extracted four components from items whose eigenvalues exceeded 1. Nineteen of the 21 items loaded best in the first component, two in the second component, and one on the third and fourth components. The scree plot analysis retained one component (depressive symptoms). Item-total correlation further showed that the values of two items in the first component fell below the very good discrimination and were deleted from the scale. The RUDS had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91, concurrent validity of r = 0.787, P = 0.000. Also, r = 0.521 and P = 0.000 were observed between RUDS and CES-D, and between RUDS and GHQ-12, respectively.

The RUDS is gender-sensitive, has acceptable psychometric properties, and is recommended as a diagnostic tool for assessing depression in adolescents and adults.