Longitudinal measurement invariance of the DSM-5 anxiety and depression severity measures

Abstract

There is scarce evidence on the psychometric properties of the Severity Measures (SMs) of the DSM-5 longitudinally, especially among Spanish young adults. Thus, the main objective of the present study was to analyze the Longitudinal Measurement Invariance (LMI) of the SMs for Depression, Generalized Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Panic, Separation Anxiety, Agoraphobia, and Specific Phobia scales in four assessment waves at 6-month intervals. A total of 564 Spanish young adults (Mage = 21.5 years; 67.9% females) participated in the study. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) were carried out at each wave. Once the adequacy of the factor structure of the models was confirmed, three levels of LMI were examined (i.e., configural, metric, and scalar). Finally, we examined internal consistency (i.e., Cronbach’s α and ω) across assessment waves and gender groups. CFAs analyses supported a two-factor solution for the specific phobia scale and a one-factor solution for the rest of the SMs in baseline models. Evidence of LMI at the configural, metric, and scalar levels was observed for all seven SMs. Reliability indices ranged from .73 to .96. These results suggest that the DSM-5 SMs are useful assessment tools for longitudinal and follow-up studies in Spanish young adults.