factor structure of persian translation of the patient health questionnaire in iranian earthquake survivors

Background: there is great need across the globe for self-report scales of depression that are brief to administer, comprehensive in content, and psychometrically valid. as most of the widely used and well-validated scales originate in english, it is essential to carefully translate them, following the psychometric validation of the adapted scales. objectives: the current study aimed at investigating the translation and validation of the persian version of one of the most widely utilized self-report depression scales in the world, the patient health questionnaire (phq). methods: the current study evaluated the validity and reliability of the phq in a population-based sample of 600 adult survivors of an earthquake in iran in 2015. researchers used the forward-backward method to translate the phq-9 into the persian language. data were analyzed using both exploratory factor analysis (efa) and confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). results: consistent with the results of validation studies on the original english-language versions of the scales, the current study found strong evidence of internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = 0.86). cfa suggested that the 1-factor structure fit reasonably well. convergent validity was confirmed by the significant and positive correlation between the scores of national stressful events survey for posttraumatic stress disorder-short scale (nsesss-ptsd) and the phq-9 (r = 0.29, p < 0.001). approximately one-third of the sample reported some depression symptoms, with less than 10% indicating moderately severe to severe symptoms. conclusions: although replication studies are needed, the current study results suggested that the persian version of the phq-9 was a valid and reliable tool to efficiently, comprehensively, and accurately assess depression symptoms in the iranian subjects.