Abstract
Depression is associated with absenteeism and presentism, problems in workplace relationships and loss of productivity and quality. The present work describes the validation of a web-based system for the assessment of depression in the university work context. The basis of the system is the Spanish version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). A total of 185 participants completed the BDI-II web-based assessment, including 88 males and 97 females, 70 faculty members and 115 staff members. A high level of internal consistency reliability was confirmed. Based on the results of our web-based BDI-II, no significant differences were found in depression severity between gender, age or workers’ groups. The main depression risk factors reported were: “Changes in sleep”, “Loss of energy”, “Tiredness or fatigue” and “Loss of interest”. However significant differences were found by gender in “Changes in appetite”, “Difficulty of concentration” and “Loss of interest in sex”; males expressed less loss of interest in sex than females with a statistically significant difference. Our results indicate that the data collected is coherent with previous BDI-II studies. We conclude that the web-based system based on the BDI-II is psychometrically robust and can be used to assess depression in the university working community.
Highlights
Depression affects a large number of people worldwide [1] and is a considerable burden on both individuals and society, and in terms of work [2]
An online system based on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II Spanish questionnaire [41] has been developed [54,55] and it has been added to a website dedicated to preventing depression in the university community to perform this research
It is important to highlight the possibility of sampling bias due to how participants were recruited. Observed indicators in both staff and faculty of depression fell within the ranks of the general population
Summary
Depression affects a large number of people worldwide [1] and is a considerable burden on both individuals and society, and in terms of work [2]. Over 300 million people are estimated to suffer from depression, equivalent to 4.4% of the world’s population [3]. The economic burden of depression, including workplace costs, direct costs and suicide- related costs in the U.S was estimated to be $210.5 billion in 2010 [5]. In Europe the total cost of depression has been estimated to reach €118 billion, most of which (61%) can be attributed to the indirect costs associated with sick leave and productivity losses. In Spain the economic burden of depression could add up to €5,005 million a year [6]
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