Validity of the GDS-4 revisited

This article points out several flaws in an earlier article (Chau, Martin, Thompson, Chang, & Woo, 2006Chau, J., Martin, C. R., Thompson, D. R., Chang, A. M. and Woo, J. 2006. Factor structure of the Chinese version of the geriatric depression scale. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11: 48–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] ). We note that Chau, Martin, Thompson, Chang, and Woo (2006Chau, J., Martin, C. R., Thompson, D. R., Chang, A. M. and Woo, J. 2006. Factor structure of the Chinese version of the geriatric depression scale. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11: 48–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] ) had misquoted our work on a 4-item version of the geriatric depression scale (GDS), and the work of the research team, which developed the original 30-item and 15-item versions of the scale. Furthermore, their data analytic methods were flawed, and their conclusions were often not supported by the data they presented. On the basis of these observations, we found no evidence against the use of the 4-item version of the GDS. Copyright © 2008 Taylor & Francis.