Construction and Standardization of a Questionnaire Investigating Cultural Reasons Causing Concurrent Obsession and Major Depressive Disorders in Iran

Background and Cultural signs may be found among people that speak a local dialect or live in a specific region or historical period. These cultural signs could influence psychopathology. The aim of this study was to design and validate a questionnaire that could evaluate the cultural factors causing concurrent obsessions and major depressive disorders in Iran. To design the questionnaire, 10 psychologists and psychiatrists who were members of academic boards were questioned by an open questionnaire. Then, the answers to the questions were classified and based on exploratory factor analysis the questionnaire containing 11 factors and 79 questions was confirmed. Internal homogeneity was analyzed by Cronbach’s alpha. The results of Cronbach’s alpha for all factors showed that the highest reliability was 0.90 and the lowest was 0.42. In exploratory factor analysis using Varimax rotation 11 factors were extracted that predict 47.3% of the scale variance. 25 factors were extracted of which14 had less than three items, therefore they were omitted because of not being able to acquire reliability as sub factors. Accordingly, a questionnaire containing 11 factors and 79 questions was constructed. The findings showed that the instrument could identify the cultural factors that cause concurrent obsession and major depressive disorders in Iran.