Development of a Short Questionnaire for Use in Epidemiological Studies of Depression in Children and Adolescents: Factor Composition and Structure Across Development.

Examined the factor composition of the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) with 1,502 1st–7th grade boys. Confirmatory factor analyses were computed to evaluate the age-invariance of a single factor SMFQ structure. Results provided strong support for the unidimensional structure of the SMFQ across Grades 1–10 in a large sample of boys. Factor loading correlations across age groups were substantial suggesting developmental continuity in item salience for the latent variable of depression. The magnitude of the mean factor loadings increased with age, suggesting that the depression construct was measured with less error as Ss matured. The SMFQ appears to provide a brief and reliable measure of a core depression construct in children and adolescents.