Normative Data on the Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition

(BDI-II) in College Students

Mark A. Whisman and Emily D. Richardson
University of Colorado Boulder
Objective: This study was conducted to provide normative data on the Beck Depression Inventory
Second Edition (BDI-II) in college students. Method: Data were obtained from 15,233 college stu-
dents drawn from 17 universities in the United States, weighted to match the gender and race/ethnicity
of enrollment in degree-granting institutions. Results: Descriptive statistics, point prevalence of
individuals exceeding cutoff scores, and mean differences by gender and race/ethnicity were provided.
Because the distribution of BDI-II scores was not normal, percentile ranks for raw scores were pro-
vided for the total sample and separately by gender and race/ethnicity for the total sample and by
race/ethnicity for men and women. Normative data were used to calculate the Reliable Change Index
on the BDI-II for college students. Conclusion: Because the distribution of BDI-II scores demon-
strated significant skewness and non-normal kurtosis, percentile ranks are important to consider in
interpreting scores on the measure, in addition to descriptive statistics. C 2015 Wiley Periodicals,

Inc. J. Clin. Psychol. 71:898907, 2015.

Keywords: Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition; BDI-II; norms; normative data; Reliable Change
Index

In the United States, it is estimated that nearly one out of every 12 adults (8.3% of the population)
will meet criteria for a major depressive episode in the prior 12 months (Kessler et al., 2010).
Worldwide, depression has been identified as the leading cause of disability (Ustun, Ayuso-
Mateos, Chatterji, Mathers, & Murray, 2004) and the second leading cause of burden (Ferrari
et al., 2013).
Approximately 40% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States are enrolled in college (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2014). Therefore, understanding depression in college students
is important for understanding depression in young adults. Existing evidence suggests that
depression is widespread among college students. For example, the American College Health
Association (ACHA)National College Health Assessment II survey found that 35% of female
and 28% of male participants report that they felt so depressed it was difficult to function
some time within the last 12 months, and 14% of female and 8% of male participants report
that they were diagnosed or treated by a professional for depression within the last 12 months
(ACHA, 2014). Furthermore, many depressed college students do not receive treatment. For
example, a recent study found that 85% of students with moderately severe to severe levels of
depressive symptoms were not receiving any form of psychiatric treatment (Garlow et al., 2008).
Given the widespread prevalence of depression, and further given its significant personal and
societal impact, psychometrically sound measures of depressive symptoms are necessary for the
assessment of the presence and severity of depression. One of the most widely accepted measures
for assessing depressive symptom severity is the Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition
(BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996), which was developed to replace the Beck Depression
Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961) and its successor, the BDI-
IA (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979; Beck & Steer, 1987).

This research was supported by a grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
We thank the researchers who generously provided us with the raw data from their published studies to
include in the current analysis.
Please address correspondence to: Mark A. Whisman, University of Colorado Boulder, Department of
Psychology and Neuroscience, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0345. E-mail: mark.whisman@colorado.edu

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 71(9), 898907 (2015) 

C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jclp). DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22188

 Normative Data on the BDI-II in College Students 899

To be meaningful, tests such as the BDI-II must have an empirical frame of reference. Gen-
erally, a test score is interpreted as indicating a persons standing relative to other people in
some group; norms provide a basis for such comparisons. Normative data on most symptom
measures such as the BDI-II are generally presented in terms of means and standard deviations
(e.g., Kendall & Sheldrick, 2000).
To evaluate the score of an individual or the mean score of a group to these normative data,
raw scores are often converted to standard scores (i.e., z or T scores, which are expressed in
terms of the mean and standard deviation). This procedure allows one to compare not only the
score of the person or the group relative to the normative group but also the standard scores
on one measure to the standard score on another measure (e.g., to compare a standard score
on a measure of depressive symptoms to a standard score on a measure of anxiety symptoms).
Standard scores, in turn, can be used to compute percentile ranks, which provide an index of
how common or uncommon a persons score is in the normative population. Percentile ranks
can be used to evaluate the percentage of people who score at or below a particular score, which
allow clinicians or researchers to quantify the abnormality or rarity of an individuals score and,
therefore, have the advantage of being easy to understand.
There is, however, a major limitation of using percentiles based on standardized scores for
symptom measures of psychopathology such as the BDI-II. The underlying assumption when
using z scores (or T scores) is that the distribution of scores follows the standard normal distribu-
tion, such that there is a fixed relationship between z scores and percentiles. However, measures
of psychopathology symptoms are unlikely to be normally distributed. Most individuals are
likely to report few symptoms of depression, for example, resulting in a distribution with pos-
itive skewness. To the extent that measured constructs such as depressive symptoms are not
normally distributed, the percentile ranks based on z or T scores will not be accurate, which
can contribute to inaccurate interpretations of scores (Crawford, Garthwaite, & Slick, 2009).
For example, Gawrysiak, Nicholas, and Hopko (2009) reported the percentile corresponding
to the mean BDI-II in a treatment-seeking sample of college students, based on the mean and
standard deviation of a nonclinical student sample, which may not be accurate if the distribution
of BDI-II scores in college students is not normal.
The present study was conducted to (a) provide normative data on the BDI-II in college
students, including providing percentile ranks, based on the assumption that scores on the BDI-
II would not be normally distributed; and (b) to illustrate potential uses of the normative data
by computing the Reliable Change index (RC; Jacobson, Follette, & Revenstorf, 1984; Jacobson
& Truax, 1991), a means for establishing that change between two time points (e.g., pre- to
posttreatment) is statistically reliable.

Method
Participants
Participants included undergraduate students from 17 universities across the United States. We
used data from multiple universities to enhance the generalizability of the results, including
generalizability to racial and ethnic minority students. To identify studies that included BDI-II
data on minority students, we first conducted a PsycINFO literature search for articles published
using the following terms: (a) BDI-II or Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition;
(b) student or undergraduate; and (c) minority or African American or Black or
Hispanic or Latino or Asian. In addition, we reasoned that studies that included large
samples of undergraduates would be more likely to yield larger numbers of minority students,
and because factor analytic studies would tend to be based on relatively large samples, we
conducted a separate search using the same search terms for the BDI-II and the keywords
factor analysis. Because of the potential problems with translated versions of the BDI-II, we
limited our search to English language version of the measure.
Finally, because we intended to weight the data to reflect the gender and ethnic distribution
of college students nationwide, we limited the search to college samples within the United States.
The search identified 33 studies. We then contacted the authors of these studies and requested
900 Journal of Clinical Psychology, September 2015

the raw data on the BDI-II, as well as data on gender, race/ethnicity, and age (if available). Of
the 33 requests, 18 authors provided complete data from their study; an additional two authors
provided raw data on the BDI-II but did not have data on race/ethnicity. Thus, the overall
response rate was 61%, and we obtained usable data from 55% of the studies. This response rate
was better than some other requests for data for reanalysis (e.g., Wicherts, Borsboom, Kats, &
Molenaar, 2006).
We also collected additional data on the BDI-II at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Therefore, the study is based on combined data from 18 published studies and one unpublished
sample, which represents data from 17 universities from diverse geographical regions in the
United States. Informed consent was obtained from participants in all samples, and the Insti-
tutional Review Board at the University of Colorado Boulder approved the use of deidentified
data.
Information regarding the studies providing data, including the university from which the
data were obtained, initial sample size, and sample description, can be found in Table 1. We
excluded participants who did not provide information on gender (n = 17) or race/ethnicity
(n = 30), or who had out of bounds scores on individual items (n = 5), leaving an initial sample
of 15,349 participants. We also excluded 116 participants who were missing data on more than
two (i.e., >10%) of the items on the BDI-II, which included 104 people who were missing data
on all items; item mean substitution was used for participants who were missing one (n = 215)
or two (n = 136) items. The final sample comprised data from 15,233 college students.
Because data were drawn from 17 universities in the United States, these data should be
more representative than data obtained at only one site. However, there may still be biases
in the probability that particular subgroups of individuals in the reference population (i.e.,
all undergraduate students in the United States) were selected, which can lead to a sample
having different characteristics to the population it aims to represent. Consequently, we used
information provided by the United States Department of Education, National Center for
Education Statistics (i.e., the Higher Education General Information Survey; Kim, 2011) to
compute sample weights to weight the data to match the gender and race/ethnicity of the total fall
enrollment in degree-granting institutions in the United States for 2007. We used 2007 enrollment
data because a new categoryTwo or More Raceswas added to the racial/ethnic classifications
for enrollment in 2008, which affects the aggregate for each of the other racial/ethnic categories.
The Higher Education General Information Survey percentages of students enrolled in degree-
granting institutions in the United States by gender and race/ethnicity were divided by the
percentages of participants in the pooled sample to create sample weights; values <1.0 indicate
that a particular subgroup was overrepresented in the pooled sample, whereas values >1.0
indicate that a particular subgroup was underrepresented. Sample weights were applied to
(i.e., multiplied by) participants responses so that responses of people who share gender and
race/ethnicity characteristics with groups who were underrepresented in the sample were given
more weight than the responses of people who shared gender and race/ethnicity characteristics
with overrepresented groups.
Demographic characteristics of the final pooled sample, including the actual number and
actual and weighted percentage of participants by gender and race/ethnicity are presented in
Table 2. The mean age of the weighted sample was 19.32 years (standard deviation [SD] = 4.87),
although data on age were available from only 13,912 participants.

Measure
The BDI-II is a 21-item self-report questionnaire that is designed to measure the severity of
depressive symptoms in adolescents and adults (Beck et al., 1996). The questions relate to
symptoms of depression with respect to the past two weeks, including today and are rated
on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 to 3. Items are summed to create a total score, ranging from
0 to 63, with higher scores reflecting greater severity. Prior research indicates that the measure
is internally consistent, differentiates between depressed and nondepressed individuals, and
correlates highly with other measures of depressive symptoms and depression-related constructs
 Normative Data on the BDI-II in College Students
Table 1
Studies Providing Data
Study
Cheref et al. (2015)
Chesin & Jeglic (2012)
Cukrowicz et al. (2012)
Dvorak et al. (2013)
Geisner et al. (2012)
Harari et al. (2005)
Klibert et al. (2005)
Lamis et al. (2014)
Lamis & Malone (2011)
Lewandowski et al.
(2006)
Norton (2005)
Okazaki (2002)
Philipp et al. (2008)
Sashidharan et al. (2012)
Scarpa et al. (2002)
Storch et al. (2004)
Whisman
Whisman et al. (2000)
Wiebe & Penley (2005)
University
Hunter College
City University of New York
Florida International
University
University of South Carolina
University of Washington
University of Akron; University
of South Carolina
University of South Alabama
University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
University of North Carolina at
Greensboro
University of Houston
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
University of Houston
Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University
University of Florida;
Louisiana State University
University of Colorado Boulder
Yale University
University of Texas at El Paso
901
N Description of sample
690 Undergraduates at public
university
554 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
976 Undergraduate in
psychology courses at
public university
1,101 Undergraduates at public
university
867 Freshman at public
university
317 Undergraduates in
psychology courses at two
public universities
475 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
1,200 Undergraduate psychology
students at public
university
1,020 Undergraduates at public
university
1,258 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
540 Undergraduates at public
university
400 Undergraduates at public
university
923 Undergraduates at public
university
278 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
518 Undergraduate psychology
students at public
university
414 Undergraduates in
psychology or education
at two public universities
2,399 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
576 Undergraduates at private
university
895 Undergraduates in
psychology course at
public university
902 Journal of Clinical Psychology, September 2015

Table 2
Demographic Characteristics of the Pooled Sample and BDI-II Means and Standard Deviations
by Demographic Group

BDI-II score

Sample characteristic N % of total Weighted % Mean SD

Total 15,233 9.14 8.45

White 8,999 59.1 66.6 8.44 8.09
Black 1,891 12.4 13.6 9.32 8.44
Asian 1,333 8.8 6.9 11.82 9.64
Latino 2,479 16.3 11.8 11.18 8.93
Other 531 3.5 1.1 10.56 9.22
Men 4,609 30.3 42.4 8.22 8.06
White 2,904 19.1 29.1 7.59 7.74
Black 402 2.6 4.8 8.53 8.01
Asian 492 3.2 3.2 11.20 9.48
Latino 631 4.1 4.9 9.62 8.30
Other 180 1.2 0.4 9.15 8.09
Women 10,624 69.7 57.6 9.81 8.67
White 6,095 40.0 37.5 9.09 8.30
Black 1,489 9.8 8.8 9.75 8.64
Asian 841 5.5 3.7 12.36 9.76
Latino 1,848 12.1 6.9 12.29 9.20
Other 351 2.3 0.7 11.45 9.81

Note. BDI-II = Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition; SD = standard deviation.

(for a review, see Dozois & Covin, 2004); the measure demonstrated good internal consistency
in the pooled sample ( = .91).
Recently, factorial invariance of the BDI-II has been found across gender and race/ethnicity
in college students (Whisman, Judd, Whiteford, & Gelhorn, 2013). Kendall, Hollon, Beck,
Hammen, and Ingram (1987) provided recommendations for BDI cutoff scores for classifying
people as nondepressed (09), mildly dysphoric (1015), and dysphoric (if people fail to meet
diagnostic criteria for major depressive episode) or depressed (if they meet criteria; 16); Dozois,
Dobson, and Ahnberg (1998) developed corresponding cutoff values for the BDI-II of <13,
1319, and 20, respectively, based on scores that optimally corresponded to Kendall et al.s
(1987) categories in a sample of 1,022 undergraduates who completed both the BDI and the
BDI-II.

Results and Discussion

Scores on the BDI-II ranged from 0 to 61. The weighted mean was 9.14 (SD = 8.45). This
mean is lower than the mean of 12.56 (SD = 9.93) reported by Beck et al. (1996) in the BDI-II
manual based on a sample of 120 college students, but it is comparable to other studies with
large undergraduate samples. For example, Dozois et al. (1998) reported a mean of 9.11 (SD =
7.57) in a sample of 1,022 undergraduates at a Canadian university. In the current sample, the
median was 7, the mode was 0, and the mean number of BDI-II items endorsed (i.e., selecting a
response option >0) was 7.23 (SD = 5.47; range = 021).
Using the cutoff scores provided by Dozois et al. (1998), we estimated that 74% of undergrad-
uates were nondepressed (i.e., had BDI-II scores of <13), 14% were mildly dysphoric (i.e., had
BDI-II scores of 1319), and 12% were dysphoric (i.e., had BDI-II scores 20). The finding that
nearly one out of every eight college students exceed the cutoff for defining dysphoria is consis-
tent with other research findings regarding the widespread prevalence of depressive symptoms
in college students (e.g., ACHA, 2014; Garlow et al., 2008) and supports the need for effective
methods for detecting and ultimately treating depression.
 Normative Data on the BDI-II in College Students 903

We were interested in evaluating mean differences on the BDI-II by gender and race/ethnicity,
based on prior evidence that BDI-II scores differ by gender (e.g., Beck et al., 1996) and
race/ethnicity (e.g., Hambrick et al., 2010). Means and standard deviations by gender and
race/ethnicity are presented in Table 2. Compared to men, women reported higher scores on the
BDI-II, t(14464) = 11.66, p <.001, d = .19. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) for race/ethnicity,
excluding the other category, yielded a significant group effect, F(3, 15083) = 96.04, p <.001,
2 = .02. Post hoc analyses, using Scheffes test, indicated that (a) Whites scored significantly
lower on the BDI-II than Blacks (d = .11), Latinos (d = .33), and Asians (d = .41); (b)
Blacks scored significantly lower than Latinos (d = .21) and Asians (d = .28); and (c) Latinos
and Asians did not significantly differ from one another (d = .07).
The distribution of BDI-II scores was not normal, as there was significant skewness (i.e., the
symmetry of a distribution; 1.50, SE = .02, z = 75.00, p <.001) and non-normal kurtosis (i.e.,
the clustering of scores towards the center of a distribution; 2.74, SE = .04, z = 68.50, p <.001).
These results suggest that BDI-II scores are concentrated toward the low end of the distribution
(i.e., skewed right) and the central peak of the distribution of scores is higher and sharper than
normal. Because the distribution of BDI-II scores is not normal, standard scores derived by
linear transformations (e.g., z scores) will not correspond to sample percentiles. These results
support our decision to report percentile ranks for BDI-II raw total scores.
Percentile ranks are presented in Table 3; computation of percentile ranks was based on
standard methods (e.g., Crawford et al., 2009). Specifically, we computed percentile rank using
the formula, [(m + 0.5 k)/N]*100, where m = number of people obtaining a score lower than
the score of interest, k = number of people obtaining the score of interest, and N = total sample
size. In keeping with prior recommendations regarding reporting standards of percentile ranks
(Crawford et al., 2009), obtained percentile ranks were rounded to the nearest integer for scores
up to the 99th percentile and to one decimal place for those at or above the 99th percentile,
which preserves the simplicity of integer values for percentile ranks that are not very extreme
and allows a distinction to be made between someone with a score estimated to be exceeded by
only one in a hundred people versus one in a thousand.
Percentile ranks for the weighted BDI-II scores are presented in Table 3 not only for the
full sample but also separately by gender, race/ethnicity for the full sample, and race/ethnicity
separately for women and men. Race/ethnicity categories of White, Black, Asian, and Latino
present percentile ranks; data from participants not falling into one of these categories (i.e.,
those who endorsed other categories) were used in computing descriptive statistics, but they
were not included as a separate group for reporting percentile ranks because of the presumed
heterogeneity of participants in this category.
To illustrate the importance using percentile ranks, rather than standard scores, it is infor-
mative to compare percentile ranks based on raw data with percentile ranks expected based on
a normal distribution. The percentile rank based on the mean of a normal distribution is 50,
whereas an inspection of the percentile ranks in Table 1 indicates that the mean BDI-II score
(i.e., a score of 9) corresponds to a percentile rank of 60. Similarly, the 50th percentile rank
corresponds to a BDI-II score of 7, which is approximately .24 of a standard deviation below
the mean. These examples illustrate the importance of using percentile ranks based on raw data
rather than standardized scores in situations in which the variable of interest is not normally
distributed, as in the current example of BDI-II scores in undergraduates.
Our emphasis has been on the importance of normative data in interpreting BDI-II scores
of individuals. However, normative data have other potential uses. Summary statistics provided
here could serve as useful standards against which to compare means on the BDI-II in clinical
or nonclinical studies of college students. For example, Gawrysiak et al. (2009) reported a mean
of 20 in a randomized controlled trial of depressed college students, which corresponds to a
percentile rank of 89 based on the normative data provided in Table 3.
The summary statistics obtained from the pooled sample reported in this study can also be
used to establish the amount of change on the BDI-II in college students that would be needed
to be statistically reliable. Jacobson and colleagues (Jacobson et al., 1984; Jacobson & Truax,
1991) developed the RC index as a means to establishing that a change between two time points
(e.g., pre- to posttreatment) is statistically reliable. An RC index based on BDI-II scores has
904 Journal of Clinical Psychology, September 2015

Table 3
Percentile Ranks for Total Scores on the BDI-II

Total sample Men Women

Score All W B A L All W B A L All W B A L

53 99.9 99.8 99.9

52 99.9 99.9 99.8 99.9 99.8 99.9 99.8
51 99.8 99.8 99.8 99.9 99.7 99.8 99.8 99.7
50 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.9 99.9 99.8 99.6
49 99.9 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.9 99.7 99.8 99.9 99.8 99.9 99.8 99.8 99.5
48 99.8 99.9 99.7 99.8 99.6 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.8 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.5
47 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.6 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.4
46 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.6 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.8 99.7 99.8 99.4
45 99.7 99.7 99.6 99.8 99.5 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.8 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.6 99.7 99.3
44 99.7 99.7 99.5 99.7 99.4 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.7 99.6 99.7 99.4 99.6 99.2
43 99.6 99.6 99.5 99.6 99.4 99.6 99.6 99.7 99.6 99.7 99.5 99.6 99.3 99.6 99.1
42 99.5 99.6 99.4 99.3 99.3 99.6 99.5 99.7 99.4 99.7 99.5 99.5 99.3 99.2 99
41 99.4 99.5 99.4 99 99.1 99.5 99.5 99.7 99.1 99.7 99.3 99.4 99.2 99 99
40 99.3 99.4 99.3 99 99 99.5 99.4 99.6 99 99.7 99.2 99.3 99.1 98 98
39 99.2 99.3 99.2 99 99 99.3 99.3 99.5 99 99.3 99.1 99.2 99 98 98
38 99.1 99.2 99.1 98 98 99.2 99.2 99.5 99 99.1 99 99 99 98 98
37 99 99.1 99 98 98 99.2 99.2 99.5 98 99 99 99 99 98 98
36 99 99 99 98 98 99 99.1 99.5 97 99 99 99 99 98 98
35 99 99 99 97 98 99 99 99.1 97 99 98 99 98 97 97
34 98 99 98 96 97 99 99 99 96 99 98 98 98 96 97
33 98 98 98 96 97 98 99 98 96 99 98 98 98 96 96
32 98 98 98 96 97 98 98 98 96 99 97 98 97 95 96
31 97 98 97 95 96 98 98 97 95 98 97 98 97 95 95
30 97 98 97 94 95 97 98 96 95 97 97 97 96 94 95
29 97 97 96 93 95 97 98 96 94 97 96 97 96 93 94
28 96 97 96 93 94 97 97 96 93 96 95 96 95 92 93
27 95 96 95 91 94 96 97 96 92 95 95 96 95 91 93
26 95 96 95 90 93 96 96 95 91 95 94 95 94 90 92
25 94 95 94 89 92 95 96 95 90 94 93 94 94 89 90
24 93 95 93 88 90 95 95 94 89 93 93 94 93 87 89
23 92 94 93 86 89 94 95 94 87 92 91 93 92 86 87
22 91 93 91 85 88 93 94 93 85 91 90 92 91 84 86
21 90 92 90 83 86 92 93 91 84 89 89 91 89 83 84
20 89 91 89 81 84 91 92 90 82 88 88 89 88 80 82
19 88 90 88 79 83 90 91 89 81 87 86 88 87 78 80
18 86 88 86 77 81 89 90 88 79 85 84 86 85 76 77
17 84 87 85 75 78 87 89 87 78 83 82 85 83 73 75
16 83 85 83 73 76 86 88 85 76 82 80 83 81 70 72
15 80 83 81 70 73 84 86 84 73 79 78 80 79 67 69
14 78 81 78 67 70 82 84 81 71 77 75 78 76 64 65
13 75 78 75 64 66 80 82 78 68 74 72 75 73 60 61
12 72 76 71 60 63 77 80 75 65 71 69 72 69 57 57
11 69 72 67 56 59 74 76 71 61 67 65 69 64 53 53
10 65 68 63 52 54 70 73 67 57 63 61 65 60 47 48
9 60 64 59 47 49 66 69 63 52 58 56 61 56 43 43
8 56 60 54 43 44 61 65 59 47 52 52 56 51 39 38
7 51 54 49 39 38 56 60 53 43 47 47 50 46 36 33
6 45 48 43 34 33 50 54 47 37 41 41 44 40 31 27
5 39 42 37 29 28 44 47 41 31 34 35 38 35 27 23
4 32 35 31 23 22 36 40 33 23 27 29 32 29 22 19
3 26 29 24 17 17 29 33 26 16 21 23 25 23 17 14
2 19 21 18 12 12 22 24 20 11 16 17 19 17 12 10
1 13 14 13 8 8 14 16 14 7 10 11 12 12 9 6
0 5 5 5 3 3 5 6 5 3 3 4 5 5 4 2

Note. BDI-II = Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition; W = White; B = Black; A = Asian; L =
Latino.
 Normative Data on the BDI-II in College Students 905

been used in measuring the efficacy of treatments for depression (e.g., Moleiro & Beutler, 2009),
including treatments for depression in college students (e.g., Gawrysiak et al., 2009).
The formula for calculating the RC index is (Time 1Time 2)/Sdiff , where Sdiff is the standard
error of difference between two scores. If the RC is larger than 1.96, then there is a 95% probability
that reliable change has occurred from Time 1 to Time 2. The standard error of difference (Sdiff )
is defined as 2SE 2 ; the formula for calculating SE , the standard error of measurement, is SE =
SD1rxx , where SD is the standard deviation of the sample and rxx is the internal consistency
of the measure. Based on normative data from this sample (SD = 8.45, rxx = .91), the Sdiff
was computed to be 3.59. Therefore, if a persons BDI-II score on two separate occasions
changed more than 7 points (i.e., 1.96 3.59), such change could be unlikely to occur (p <.05)
without actual change. Knowing the RC based on normative data on the BDI-II could be
useful in deciding whether change in depressive symptoms in an individual student or group of
students reflects reliable change, which could aid in determining the clinical significance of pre-
to posttreatment change in depression for college students.

Limitations
The normative data from the study were based on data obtained from 17 universities from diverse
geographical regions in the United States, which in turn were weighted to match the gender and
race/ethnicity distribution of the total fall enrollment in degree-granting institutions in the
United States. However, results are based on responses to students who were participating in
research projects and not all of the authors of published studies we contacted provided their
data. Therefore, the data may not be representative of all college students or young adults in
general.

Conclusion
The results of the study suggest not only that depressive symptoms are common in college
students, but also that normative data, including descriptive statistics and percentile ranks, are
important in interpreting symptom severity on the BDI-II.

References
American College Health Association. (2014). American College Health AssociationNational Col-
lege Health Assessment II: Reference Group Executive Summary Spring 2014. Hanover, MD:
Author.
Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York:
Guilford.
Beck, A. T., & Steer, R. A. (1987). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory. San Antonio, TX: Psycho-
logical Corporation.
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition.
San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.
Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring
depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561571. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004
Cheref, S., Lane, R., Polanco-Roman, L., Gadol, E., & Miranda, R. (2015). Suicidal ideation among
racial/ethnic minorities: Moderating effects of rumination and depressive symptoms. Cultural Diversity
and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 21, 3140. doi:10.1037/a0037139
Chesin, M. S., & Jeglic, E. L. (2012). Suicidal behavior among Latina college students. Hispanic Journal of
Behavioral Sciences, 34, 421426. doi:10.1177/0739986312445271
Crawford, J. R., Garthwaite, P. H., & Slick, D. J. (2009). On percentile norms in neuropsychology: Proposed
reporting standards and methods for quantifying the uncertainty over the percentile ranks of test scores.
The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 23, 11731195. doi:10.1080/13854040902795018
Cukrowicz, K. C., Schlegal, E. F., Smith, P. N., Jacobs, M. P., Van Orden, K. A., Paukert, A. L., . . . &
Joiner, T. E. (2012). Suicide ideation among college students evidencing subclinical depression. Journal
of American College Health, 59, 575581. doi:10.1080/07448481.2010.483710
906 Journal of Clinical Psychology, September 2015

Dozois, D. J. A., & Covin, R. (2004). The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Beck Hopelessness
Scale (BHS), and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS). In M. J. Hilsenroth & D. L. Segal (Eds.),
Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment, Vol. 2: Personality assessment (pp. 5069).
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Dozois, D. J. A., Dobson, K. S., & Ahnberg, J. L. (1998). A psychometric evaluation of the Beck Depression
Inventory-II. Psychological Assessment, 10, 8389. doi:10.1037%2F1040-3590.10.2.83
Dvorak, R. D., Lamis, D. A., & Malone, P. S. (2013). Alcohol use, depressive symptoms, and impulsivity as
risk factors for suicide proneness among college students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 149, 326334.
doi:10.1016/j.jad.2013.01.046
Ferrari, A. J., Charlson, F. J., Norman, R. E., Patten, S. B., Freedman, G., Murray, C. J. L., . . . & Whiteford,
H. A. (2013). Burden of depressive disorders by country, sex, age, and year: Findings from the Global
Burden of Disease Study 2010. PLoS Medicine, 10, e1001547. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001547
Garlow, S. J., Rosenberg, J., Moore, J. D., Haas, A. P., Koestner, B., Hendin, H., & Nemeroff, C. B.
(2008). Depression, desperation, and suicidal ideation in college students: Results from the American
Foundation for Suicide Prevention College Screening Project at Emory University. Depression and
Anxiety, 25, 482488. doi:10.1002/da.20321
Gawrysiak, M., Nicholas, C., & Hopko, D. R. (2009). Behavioral activation for moderately depressed
university students: Randomized controlled trial. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56, 468475.
doi:10.1037/a0016383
Geisner, I. M., Mallett, K., & Kilmer, J. R. (2012). An examination of depressive symptoms and
drinking patterns in first year college students. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 33, 280287.
doi:10.3109/01612840.2011.653036
Hambrick, J. P., Rodebaugh, T. L., Balsis, S., Woods, C. M., Mendez, J. L., & Heimberg, R. G. (2010). Cross-
ethnic measurement equivalence of measures of depression, social anxiety, and worry. Assessment, 17,
155171. doi:10.1177/1073191109350158
Harari, M. J., Waehler, C. A., & Rogers, J. R. (2005). An empirical investigation of a theoretically based mea-
sure of perceived wellness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 93103. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.1.93
Jacobson, N. S., Follette, W. C., & Revenstorf, D. (1984). Psychotherapy outcome research: Meth-
ods for reporting variability and evaluating clinical significance. Behavior Therapy, 15, 336352.
doi:10.1016/S0005-7894(84)80002-7
Jacobson, N. S., & Truax, P. (1991). Clinical significance: A statistical approach to defining meaning-
ful change in psychotherapy research. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59, 1219.
doi:10.1037/0022-006X.59.1.12
Kendall, P. C., Hollon, S. D., Beck, A. T., Hammen, C. L., & Ingram, R. E. (1987). Issues and recommen-
dations regarding use of the Beck Depression Inventory. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 11, 289299.
doi:10.1007/BF01186280
Kendall, P. C., & Sheldrick, R. C. (2000). Normative data for normative comparisons. Journal of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 68, 767773. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.68.5.767
Kessler, R. C., Birnbaum, H. G., Shahly, V., Bromet, E., Hwang, I., McLaughlin, K. A., . . . & Stein, D.
J. (2010). Age differences in the prevalence and co-morbidity of DSM-IV major depressive episodes:
Results from the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initative. Depression and Anxiety, 27, 351364.
doi:10.1002/da.20634
Kim, Y. M. (2011). Minorities in higher education: 2011 supplmenet. Washington, DC: American Council
on Education.
Klibert, J. J., Langhrinrichsen-Rohling, J., & Saito, M. (2005). Adaptive and maladaptive aspects of self-
oriented versus socially prescribed perfectionism. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 141156.
doi:10.1353/csd.2005.0017
Lamis, D. A., Ballard, E. D., & Patel, A. B. (2014). Loneliness and suicidal ideation in drug-using college
students. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 44, 629640. doi:10.1111/sltb.12095
Lamis, D. A., & Malone, P. S. (2011). Alcohol-related problems and risk of suicide among college students:
The mediating roles of belongingness and burdensomeness. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 41,
543553. doi:10.1111/j.1943-278X.2011.00052.x
Lewandowski, K. E., Barrantes-Vidal, N., Nelson-Gray, R. O., Clancy, C., Kepley, H. O., & Kwapil, T.
R. (2006). Anxiety and depression symptoms in psychometrically identified schizotypy. Schizophrenia
Research, 83, 225235. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2005.11.024
 Normative Data on the BDI-II in College Students 907

Moleiro, C., & Beutler, L. E. (2009). Clinically significant change in psychotherapy for depressive disorders.
Journal of Affective Disorders, 115, 220224. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2008.09.009
National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). Digest of Education Statistics. Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2014menu_tables.asp
Norton, P. J. (2005). A psychometric analysis of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale among four racial
groups. Anxiety Disorders, 19, 699707. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2004.08.002
Okazaki, S. (2002). Self-other agreement on affective distress scales in Asian Americans and White Ameri-
cans. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49, 428437. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.49.4.428
Philipp, L. M., Washington, C., Raouf, M., & Norton, P. J. (2008). Cross-cultural examination of the
tripartite model in adults. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 37, 221232. doi:10.1080/16506070802268175
Sashidharan, T., Pawlow, L. A., & Pettibone, J. C. (2012). An examination of racial bias in the
Beck Depression Inventory-II. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18, 203209.
doi:10.1037/a0027689203
Scarpa, A., Fikretoglu, D., Bowser, F., Hurley, J. D., Pappert, C. A., Romero, N., & Van Voorhees, E.
(2002). Community violence exposure in university students: A replication and extension. Journal of
Interpersonal Violence, 17, 253272. doi:10.1177/0886260502017003002
Storch, E. A., Roberti, J. W., & Roth, D. A. (2004). Factor structure, concurrent validity, and internal
consistency of the Beck Depression InventorySecond Edition in a sample of college students. Depression
and Anxiety, 19, 187189. doi:10.1002/da.20002
Ustun, T. B., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L., Chatterji, S., Mathers, C., & Murray, C. J. L. (2004). Global burden of de-
pressive disorders in the year 2000. British Journal of Psychiatry, 184, 386392. doi:10.1192/bjp.184.5.386
Whisman, M. A., Judd, C. M., Whiteford, N. T., & Gelhorn, H. L. (2013). Measurment invariance of
the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) across gender, race, and ethnicity in college
students. Assessment, 20, 419428. doi:10.1177/1073191112460273
Whisman, M. A., Perez, J. E., & Ramel, W. (2000). Factor structure of the Beck Depression Inven-
tory Second Edition (BDI-II) in a student sample. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56, 545551.
doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(200004)56:4<545::AID-JCLP7>3.0.CO;2-U
Wicherts, J. M., Borsboom, D., Kats, J., & Molenaar, D. (2006). The poor availability of psychological
research data for reanalysis. American Psychologist, 61, 726728. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.61.7.726
Wiebe, J. S., & Penley, J. A. (2005). A psychometric comparison of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in
English and Spanish. Psychological Assessment, 17, 481485. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.17.4.481
Copyright of Journal of Clinical Psychology is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and
its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.