I would like to soon run a large study on mTurk and correlate our outcome measure (aesthetic evaluation of images) with depressive symptoms (potentially also splitting the populations into groups of depressed versus non-depressed participants).
I still find that most research employs the BDI, but found good arguments to use the PHQ-9, too.
I would be grateful for feedback and advice from people in the field. Thanks!
I think each instrument has its own good and bad sides.
When I need to choose an instrument, I normally will consider the following criteria
1. The psychometric properties of the instrument in your population (whether it has been well validated or not)
2. The number of question items
3. Whether it is free or not
4. Whether it is commonly used in your field.
etc
I have only used PHQ-9 before. I think it is a good screening questionnaire and commonly used in clinical settings. I only have 9+1 questions
It corresponds to the nine diagnostic symptoms for Major Depressive Disorder in the DSM-5.
What about the STADI (https://www.testzentrale.de/shop/test-komplett-bestehend-aus-manual-je-10-fragebogen-s-und-t-je-10-auswertungsbogen-s-und-t-10-verlaufsbogen-10-profilbogen-schablonensatz-und-mappe.html) --especially of you work with German participants?
And 2nd question: why using MTurk? Honestly, especially if it is about aesthetics, it's very important that you can speak with the participants after the experiment about their rationale, their hypotheses etc.
Your idea of combining personality traits and aesthetic experience draws my specific attention. Can you tell me more, also via email? I am looking forward to hearing from you!
All the best,
CCC
Thanks to everybody for the very helpful questions so far.
I should perhaps clarify that I am strictly interested in depression, depressive symptoms, and out of these anhedonia is the one that seems in and by itself interesting.
So I do actually think that the very concise and targeted nature of the PHQ-9 is great for our purpose, but acceptance in the community was a serious concern.
STAI or other inventories that measure related but distinct constructs might be interesting for exploratory analyses and to check for divergence of results. Yet, I'd be sceptic about interpretation without the also suggested, but sadly not feasible, more in-depth interview procedures.
So, if anyone on top of the already helpful comments has another suggestion regarding an anhedonia scale or regarding how to extract that particular symptom from the PHQ-9, I'd be most grateful.
Just to add to the suggestions already made and chip in about anhedonia. I agree with Stephen about BDI vs PHQ-9. BDI was designed as a clinical tool, to be used alongside clinical judgement. The constructs focus on the experience of the patient (symptoms) more than biological indicators (signs). BDI is also designed for one-to-one use whereas the PHQ-9 designed for population survey.
For anhedonia, there are specific tools available. it might be worth looking at the review by Frewen et al (2011). doi: 10.3402/ejpt.v3i0.8585. might be useful!
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