As average life expectancy increases and greater emphasis is placed on mental health and quality of life in general, there is a need to understand the prevalence of mental health disorders.
This research – 'Six-country psychometric comparison of women responses to the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) and the Child and Adolescent Behaviour Inventory (CABI) across cultures and time' – evaluated two tools, used to assess depression symptoms in caregivers and child behavioural problems respectively, to determine whether they are reliable measures which could be used in different cultures and at different, or subsequent, timepoints with the same respondents.
Led by DPhil student Francisco Antonio Calderón at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI), the study found evidence that DASS and CABI tools are effective ways of measuring mental health symptoms. Importantly, both measuring tools are freely available, translated, and are therefore affordable in diverse settings such as in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
“Our findings support the use of these tools in resource-limited settings, which in turn will help to promote local research. This would also contribute to decolonising research as they are valid, reliable alternatives to the for-profit instruments developed in high-income countries,” commented lead author Francisco Calderón.
The research was carried out by Francisco Calderón, DSPI researchers Jamie Lachman, Frances Gardner, Lucie Cluver, and Stephanie Eagling-Peche, as well as international collaborators Catherine Ward, Qing Han, Rosanne Jocson, Ivo Kunkvski, Rumaya Juhari, Kufre Okop, Jennel Reyes, Viorel Babii, Liane Peña Alampay and Marija Raleva.
Why this research was needed
It is estimated that 241 million youths worldwide are affected by a mental disorder. The most common mental health disorders are anxiety disorders (117 million), disruptive behaviour disorder (113 million), ADHD (63 million), and depressive disorders (47 million) (Polanczyk et al., 2015). In 2007 depressive disorders became the third biggest cause of years lived with disability (YLD) across all ages and sexes, and now account for 14% accounts for 14 % of all YLD.
For effective measures to be put in place, it is important to know the type and prevalence of mental health in a country. However, there is limited psychometric evidence on the robustness of tools which measure the rate of mental health conditions particularly over time and across cultures.
What is important about this research
The study used secondary data collected from six countries as part of the ePLH Pilot Study: Online Support Parent Groups – ParentChat, an intervention study conducted within DSPI by the Global Parenting Initiative and involving collaboration with institutions around the world. This study used data from North Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Montenegro, Philippines, and South Africa.
"Some of the regions where our collaborators are based are often under-represented in research and academic outputs. For this reason, contextualised and tested measurements are often not available or tend to be behind paywalls, which may not be feasible to use for institutions wishing to conduct research within their countries,” commented Francisco Calderón. “To promote research worldwide, we are committed to providing open-access and freely available measurements for social science research.”
Funding was provided by LEGO Foundation and The Human Safety Net.
