Background: Emotional blunting is prevalent in patients with mood disorders and adversely affects the overall treatment outcome. The Oxford Depression Questionnaire is a validated psychometric instrument for assessing emotional blunting. We aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the ODQ (ODQ) in Chinese patients with mood disorders.
Methods: 136 mood disorders patients and 95 healthy control participants were recruited at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine. Patients were assessed using the ODQ, Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis were used to evaluate construct and convergent validity.
Results: A total of 136 patients with mood disorders and 95 healthy controls participated in this study. Cronbach α values were 0.928 (ODQ-20) and 0.945 (ODQ-26). Test-retest reliability coefficients were 0.798 (ODQ-20) and 0.836 (ODQ-26) (p< 0.05); intraclass correlation coefficient values were 0.777 (ODQ-20) and 0.781 (ODQ-26) (p< 0.01). The score of ODQ was positively correlated with BDI-II and MADRS (r=0.326~0.719, 0.235~0.537, p< 0.01). The differences in the ODQ scores between the patient and control groups were statistically significant.
Conclusion: The reliability, structural validity, and criterion validity of the ODQ applied to patients with mood disorders meet the psychometric requirements, and the scale can be used to assess emotional blunting in Chinese patients with mood disorders.
Keywords: emotional blunting, Chinese, mood disorder, psychometrics, validation