The Chinese version of the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: Longitudinal psychometric syntheses with 10-year cohort multi-center evidence in an adult sample.

Objective: To evaluate cross-sectional (CMI), longitudinal (LMI), and cross-measurement invariance (C-LMI) of the Chinese version of the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D 8) and reconfirm other properties for measuring depression construct.

Methods: 11,479 Chinese adults from China Family Panel Studies were enrolled and randomly split into two halves. The exploratory half was used to reidentify the structures of the CES-D 8 by bootstrap exploratory graph analysis (bootEGA) and the confirmatory half was used to compare and choose the structure by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Results: The original two-factor model was found satisfactory as the solution for the Chinese CES-D 8 because of the relatively best fit. The CMI, LMI, and C-LMI were supported within groups of gender, age, marital status, and time with indices that have met the expectations. The Chinese CES-D 8 also showed sufficient internal consistencies with Cronbach's alpha valuing 0.795-0.868 and McDonald's omega valuing 0.850-0.870.

Conclusions: The CES-D 8 presents sufficient psychometric syntheses for assessing depressive symptoms to adulthood. These results demonstrate adequate measurement invariances and can be reliably used at different genders, ages, and long-term time points in Chinese cultural backgrounds.