Psychometric Evaluation of the 8-Item Patient Health Questionnaire Among Filipino American Emerging Adult Men and Women

Abstract

Depression is associated with numerous physical and psychological difficulties. Emerging adults—particularly college students—face developmental and contextual challenges that increase vulnerability to depressive symptoms. Filipino Americans remain underrepresented in both depression research and psychometric evaluations of widely used screening instruments. The present study examined the psychometric properties of scores from the 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) in a sample of college students from Southern California (698 Filipino Americans, 945 European Americans). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the factor structure of PHQ-8 scores, and multigroup CFA was conducted to examine measurement invariance across ethnicity and sex. Evidence relevant to extrapolation inferences was examined through associations with an established depression measure and theoretically related constructs, including anxiety, perceived stress, brooding rumination, self-esteem, and quality of life. Results supported a unidimensional factor structure and measurement invariance of PHQ-8 scores across groups. In addition, PHQ-8 scores demonstrated expected associations with the external validation variables, providing further support for their interpretation as indicators of depressive symptom severity among Filipino American and European American emerging adults.