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This study examined the clinical validity of a Persian language version of the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ-Persian). We hypothesized that patients with major depression can be clearly distinguished from non-patient members of general population regarding both frequency of negative thoughts (ATQ-F) and degree of belief in these thoughts (ATQ-B). To test this hypothesis, we used discriminant function analysis in a group of 30 female patients with major depression and 30 female non-patient volunteers. ATQ-F and ATQ-B discriminated the large majority of depressed patients from non-patient volunteers and were correlated with the severity of depression as measured by scores on the Beck Depression Inventory-second edition. The data provide preliminary evidence for clinical validity and utility of ATQ-Persian. Depression and Anxiety 0:1–4, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is perhaps the most commonly used screening instrument for depression in the general population. We examined the psychometric properties of a Persian-language version of the second edition of this instrument (BDI-II) [Beck et al., 1996] in an Iranian college-student sample. In a sample of 125 student volunteers from two Iranian universities, we compared mean item scores on the BDI-II-Persian with those on the English-language version administered to North American college students, and assessed internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the BDI-II-Persian and its concurrent validity against a measure of negative automatic thoughts in depression, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire [Hollon and Kendall, 1980]. We also examined the factor structure of the BDI-II-Persian through comparing the fit of various proposed models to the data using confirmatory factor analysis. The BDI-II-Persian had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.87) and acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.74). The instrument correlated strongly with the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. In factor analysis, models with strongly correlated affective-cognitive and somatic-vegetative factors provided a better fit than models with one global factor. These data support the reliability and concurrent validity of the BDI-II-Persian as a measure of depressive symptoms in nonclinical samples.